


The High Price Of Mind Control Removal

by jalendavi_lady



Series: Teamwork [4]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alien Character(s), Alien Gender/Sexuality, Avengers Tower, Brainwashing, Brothers, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Food Issues, Gen, Mind Control, Mute Loki, Near Death Experience, Nonverbal Communication, Protective Avengers, Protective Thor, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con References, Recovery From Mind Control, Shapeshifting, assistive technology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-15
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 65,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On departure from Midgard, Thor learns Loki's actions were not entirely his choice. Just what will removing the influence on his mind cost Loki and the rest of Odin's family? And what will happen when the Avengers have to get involved?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They twisted the Tesseract's case together, and Thor felt the wormhole take them.

But where they landed was nowhere on Asgard.

Loki looked at him, eyes wide and full of fear and betrayal.

"I do not know where we are," Thor told him. "It was programmed by Father before I left Asgard."

The world was desolate. The air was breathable, but it was clear to Thor that neither of them would last more than a few days here. There was no food and it seemed little or no water.

And it was too cold for Thor. Now, while the local sun was up, it was chilly, but he had no doubt the night could be deadly to him unless he found shelter. He was already feeling himself begin to shiver.

 _This world must be comfortable for Loki, then,_ Thor thought.

It was not a good thought.

"He promised we were bringing you home."

Loki stared at him.

"I swear it, Brother! I have no way home from here either!"

Loki let go and sat in the dust. There was a determined look in his eyes, and fear.

Ever-greater fear.

After a long time, he took a deep breath and reached out to the ground with a trembling finger.

"T R A C"

Loki gave a little cry in his throat and fell to his side, eyes trying to roll back and his body shaking.

Thor caught his hands as he fell, mind not willing to think it might be a trap. "I am here with you, Brother. I will not leave you in this place."

What could it mean? Of course Heimdall would be tracking them...

Thor felt himself chill even more.

When Loki had mostly stilled, Thor helped get him over to a rocky outcropping where there was a good flat clean place to lie down out of the dust. "Brother, I think I need to ask you some things."

Loki's eyes widened and the fear and pain was apparent. But he laid down without prompting.

And then he grabbed for Thor's hand.

"Still say we are not brothers, Brother?" Thor asked, trying to keep his voice kind.

Loki started weeping.

"You have been under the control of another."

Thor didn't need to see the way Loki's eyes lost focus to know he was right.

He let Loki rest, clinging to his hand, and thought about what to do next.

* * *

"I will borrow a lesson from you, Brother. Yes or no questions. Where one answer would be something they would not want me to know if correct and the other would not."

Loki's hand trembled in his.

"So that I will get the answers they do not wish anyone to have, and nothing you suffer be needless."

Loki's eyes filled with fear, but he nodded.

It took an hour, and Loki's eyes were losing focus by the time it was over, but Thor found out what he'd wanted to know.

The army had been a loan, not Loki's own. The army had been controlled by a third party, someone who Thor did not know the name of (Loki had visibly not appreciated being asked if they were controlled by anyone from Jotunheim, but he had accepted Thor's explanation of working through the known realms group by group).

The third party had found Loki after his fall, had compromised his mind, threatened him should he fail, and had the capacity to track him.

And most of the things he had said to Thor on Midgard were at least partly for show, not Loki's true thoughts.

The last had taken several minutes to recover from before Loki could shake his head at the thought of any more questions, forestalling Thor from going conversation by conversation to learn what was false and what was real.

Thor brushed the hair back from Loki's face, talking of pleasant childhood things from back when all of Loki's tricks had been the harmless pranks of a child and their elders had laughed with him instead of at him.

Loki was now a threat to any realm he entered, any person he stood beside. And until someone had thought to ask the right questions, Loki had been blocked from telling anyone under threat of agony he could not hope to work through.

A whooshing noise, and then Odin and Frigga were standing nearby on the plain.

"Father, his mind... he can be tracked..."

"Heimdall said this was so. There was much he could not tell, but that, and how, he could tell."

Frigga ran forward and took Loki into her arms as she had when they were children unable to deal with their own nightmares.

"And how to remove it." But Odin's voice held none of the hope Thor thought such words should bring them.

Frigga and Loki were crying on each other, and the idea grew in Thor's mind, large and scary and terrible, that Loki knew exactly _why_ their father was so grim and their mother so smothering.

And behind it, horrifying, that Loki might have known since the moment they arrived.

"Remove it?" Thor asked, voice trembling with the not-knowing.

"He is being tracked, there is no time, there is a window now when they cannot directly control him or observe him. But only a window, and the only way to extend it is to keep him moving. We cannot do this the easy way, and I will not allow any of my sons to fall into the hands of these enemies if it be in my power to do otherwise."

Loki was looking at him with teary bright eyes. Odin gathered him up in his arms, the gruff whole-body hug they had received when they were barely as tall as his waist. "Mine. My son. The child I picked to come into my life when I already had an heir and he had no one to call his own.  _Mine_ . Nothing else matters now."

He reached behind Loki's head and detached the gag, but at the same time he placed something there Thor hadn't gotten a look at but that made Loki tremble.

"If there were any other way that could end any better for you, I would take it," Odin told him.

"I'm sorry, Father..." Loki rasped out before coughing to clear his throat.

"Shh, it doesn't matter now," Frigga told him.

"We should have been honest with you both long ago," Odin told them. "But alas, time only runs one way."

"Loki, there will be damage. We don't know how much."

"Care for me, Mother?" Loki begged, clinging to her gown with a hand.

Frigga stroked his hair. "Of course I will, if there is need of it."

"Thor?"

Thor reached for his other hand. "You are my brother, Loki. You have been for as long as I can remember. Nothing has changed that. Nothing  _will_ change that."

"Loki, I can delay only a little longer."

"Father, Mother, I love you. Thor..."

"Being brothers is too complicated for words."

Loki smiled weakly. "Yes. Please, no matter how bad it is -" his voice broke "- please, give me a chance."

Thor didn't understand what he was saying, but Odin clapped him on the shoulder. "If it be that bad, you shall have your chance."

"Thank you."

"Brother, I believe I owe you something. From before everything went wrong between us."

"Thor, there is little time," Odin warned.

"But a moment is enough. You asked something of me, Loki." He leaned over and kissed Loki's forehead.

A weak laugh. "Brother, that was but jes..." A shudder and a whimper, then silence and stillness.

"It was better it begin when he was relaxed and happy," Odin replied to the pair of appalled looks he received a moment later. "Another minute and he would have been afraid again."

Frigga carefully eased Loki out of Odin's arms and laid him so that his head was resting on her lap.

"Father, what  _is_ it doing?"

"Ripping out everything they forced into his mind, so that they have no way to touch or track him. When it finishes, we can take him home without risk to him, us, or Asgard."

Every little bit of how Loki had acted suddenly made horrifying sense. "Did he know this was what was meant for him?"

"He was aware of what they were doing to him, and therefore what removing it would mean for him, yes. Designed like a war arrow, to maximize the damage when it is pulled out."

"... he wants a chance to live if he is like the warriors who receive brain blows the healing stones cannot repair."

"Yes." Odin nodded grimly.

One look at the dull appearance of Loki's half-opened eyes and the slackness of his face, and Thor could believe it was easily going to be that bad.

"There was only one other option, Thor. One way we could have sent him elsewhere, where his enemies could not find and torment him again nor use him to harm his family as he watched."

"There is such a place?" Thor asked. "Where?"

Odin's voice was the dullest Thor had ever heard it. "Valhalla."

* * *

Days had passed since those awful hours on the nameless cold world where the brother Thor had known had met his functional end.

The only good of it, so far as Thor knew, was that the new leader of the Jotun - a giant of giants named Ulfr who claimed to have been Laufey's brother-in-law - had officially accepted what had happened since Loki's fall from the Bifrost as well worse than any retribution they would have asked for even if told whatever they asked would be done without argument.

"For us," the Jotun had told both Odin and Thor, "this... this is worse than death. Even if he regains himself, it is worse."

"So it is with us, as well," Odin had concurred as Thor tried not to weep.

Jotunheim was no place for tears, not unless you wanted frostbite at the corners of your eyes.

"I cannot believe Laufey would have wished this on him. Yes," Ulfr said as the Asgardian men reacted in their shock, "he knew. It took the news from the Jotun who grabbed Loki without frostburning him, but he knew after he swore Thor would have his war. It was his order that we wait and see what Loki would do."

"Loki did not know until that day," Odin told him. "But I thought there were laws against reclaiming such relationships among the Jotun once a child was abandoned."

"The laws prevent direct claiming of him, but there is much that could have been done. Now... he can find no sanctuary here by the law. If knowledge of we Jotun can help, ask and I will consider if the advantage it might give you in the future is too great to provide it - I believe Laufey would have wished it so. Loki was too small to survive, the only child Laufey had with his first love and it burned him for years to think that you gained a second heir with Frigga the same year he had lost the war, his child, and his love. The thought Loki lived, even if in your house and passing as a son of Asgard... it was as the sunlight that brings meltwater to crops." Ulfr looked Odin straight in the face. "Things could have gone very differently between our realms and our families had Loki reacted otherwise. But, as we say, that is last year's snow and any who attempt to return it to the sky shall be buried solid under the weight. Whoever Loki becomes now, we will merely account his past actions as a warning against trusting him."

It was a truce, not a lasting treaty, but for the moment there was peace between the realms and lasting assurance there would be no risk of Jotun retribution against Loki.

Thor came into his parents' chambers, as had become his normal afternoon routine.

"Thor," his mother said warmly.

"Is there any change at all?" he asked, nodding toward the bundle of bedclothes with black hair just visible on one end that she was sitting beside.

"Not today. I think he tried to track your father with his eyes last night."

Thor nodded. It was next to nothing, but even that was something.

Loki's mind had come out from the procedure - if it could be called that - not merely damaged but so badly ripped apart that Heimdall had needed to reassure them that acute trauma to his mind was inevitable and Loki was not, as they had feared, mind-dead.

There were still few signs otherwise. But then, what were a few days to an injury nothing but Loki himself had a hope of healing?

"There is yet hope, Thor." She rubbed Loki's back. "Your little brother has always been tougher than many thought him. He has already been a child meant to die who lived instead once before. He will have his chance."

"And when will Father decide he has had it?" Thor asked, dabbing at his eyes from the thought of it.

"Odin will make no such decision. Thor, if Loki's condition remains like this over time, he will weaken and pass on without anyone having to do anything to harm him. And if that happens, there will be a long time between the changes becoming apparent and the point where improvement will do him no good."

"And yet there is hope?" he asked bitterly.

"Yes, there is. Remember, Thor, your brother was born to a harsher realm and what he lacks in strength he makes up for in tenacity. If but one in all of Asgard could survive this, that one is Loki."

Thor nodded, trying to accept her words as true. He eased in beside Loki on the bed and gathered him into his arms as best as he could.

And tried desperately to believe he didn't merely imagine his brother's muscles relaxing slightly, as if there was something left inside him that knew he was being held and by whom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had the vast majority of this chapter sitting on my hard drive since shortly after I watched _The Avengers_. You can all thank the people who begged me for a "Returning The Favor" sequel for me posting it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is contemporaneous with the yet-unwritten end of "Time For Saying Goodbye". I had meant this to remain a one-shot and extend the series elsewhere, but it appears that "High Price" will become the long piece in the series.

Loki nuzzled into Thor's shoulder.

Weeks and weeks of attempted recovery and his brother had made strides Thor had tried not to dare hope for.

Loki knew what a bathroom was used for and if led there could take care of his needs and bathe himself with a cloth wet from the sink - there was too much risk of drowning for a proper bath - but he seemed incapable of asking in even the little ways he seemed capable of asking.

He had to be fed like a small child, complete with a battle each meal, but he understood chewing. They had tried to ease the fighting by spacing meals out further and further so he would be hungry enough to feel it, but after the time he was clearly weak and miserable from lack of food and yet still fought even Frigga had to admit that the battle over the battles would simply have to wait. They would just have to hope that it was all from damage not yet healed instead of damage that had already had healed _wrong_.

And he knew _them_.

He knew Odin and Frigga, both with a child's trust that made Thor doubt he remembered he was not their biological son.

He knew Thor, and even limited to the tiny things he could manage now he was displaying more physical affection than he had even when they were children.

But above everything was this: it was now certain Loki would survive. He would be dependent on others, but he would live.

Always dependent, Thor was coming to accept. There had been too much damage done, and even if removing everything had not nearly destroyed him, Loki would have needed looking after of some kind or another.

What was becoming clear to Thor at least, much as Odin ignored it or seemed to and Frigga was in outright denial of it, Loki's recovery was slowing.

Extremely fast.

Thor had no idea how to help. He didn't even know what was causing it.

He also didn't know, really know, whether or not he _should_ do anything.

Loki nestled closer, as if seeking reassurance. Thor held him a little tighter in answer, continuing to think.

Loki _was_ dependent, in ways that would have driven the man he had been half-mad on its own, but so far as anyone could tell he was at least content if not even happy, which was a very far cry from the terrified man he'd been on that chilly, lonely world.

It was not by any means a life Thor thought the brother he had grown up with would have considered tolerable in the slightest, but the brother he _had_ didn't seem to be complaining.

And yet...

Loki had begged for a chance, and their father had sworn he would have it.

But now that his life was assured, what exactly _had_ Loki meant?

Given the choice between this comfortable existence and doing better but feeling worse, which would he have picked if they could have spread out all his Future Self options in front of him and given him a choice?

Because Thor didn't think the slowdown was entirely natural. This was _Loki,_ after all, and more to the point, a Loki who had been mind-controlled to the point where voluntarily giving up control of himself to avoid being hurt was one of the clear goals of whatever torments his unknown enemy had put him through.

It could be a natural slow-down, yes, which nothing Thor knew of could aid. Or it could be Loki being Loki and hiding any skill he didn't need to express, a situation where giving him challenges Frigga would advise against might force him out. Or, the option Thor feared, Loki's recovery had begun to approach skills his controller had not wished him to have at all and Loki was dutifully avoiding those capacities for his own safety.

Thinking of it made Thor ill.

Loki stilled beside him, as if bracing for a blow.

"I am thinking of what best to do for you, Brother," Thor told him quietly, knowing he wasn't going to understand a word of it but should at least get that it was meant as reassurance. "And I am wishing I knew what _is_ best for you."

Frigga walked in, visibly fighting to remain calm and seem calm. "Thor, you need to go talk to your father," she told him in a voice more suited to discussing how the flowers were blooming outside. "Right now. Something has happened."

* * *

"Father? Mother told me you needed to talk to me?"

Odin was standing at a window, looking out over the realm. He did not turn to look at Thor. "The news of your brother's biological origin - thankfully not of his exact parentage - has leaked. Your brother is vulnerable, and as he has no _use_ to the realm at the moment many who would have tolerated his presence before may see no need now."

Thor closed his eyes. _That_ put Loki in an entirely new kind of danger.

"I've alerted Ulfr. Unfortunately, Jotunheim is no potential safe refuge for him."

"Even if it were not for their law, even if he had not taken revenge on Laufey for his abandonment, he was trained all his days until he learned he was one of them by blood to see them as enemies. No place to take him as he is."

Odin nodded. "Sadly so. If I had known..."

Thor did not interrupt as he trailed off into thought.

"As it is, Thor, I can see but two options."

"What are they?"

"We try to defend him here."

"That would take never letting him leave the royal quarters, even if he healed enough to manage it. Trading imprisonment of mind for imprisonment of body. I can't imagine that's something he would have accepted, nor will he if he becomes capable of perceiving it."

"Neither can I. The other option is your human friends and allies."

"There is no means to travel there that does not put them in danger, not until the Bifrost is rebuilt."

Odin looked over at him at last, the slightest lift to one corner of his mouth. "Much progress was made while you were defending them. And yet more made on your return, when another power source became available to aid in its reconstruction."

Well, that was one way to safeguard the Tesseract. Good luck to anyone who crossed Heimdall trying to steal part of his observatory - it was close enough to suicide that the Valkyries might not take them to Valhalla without a great deal of luck even if they did manage to get a blow in.

"So inter-realm travel is possible without carrying a portable device again?"

"Just so." Odin fully turned to face him. "And your friends need to be warned that they yet have an enemy, for whoever was controlling your brother may yet have an interest in their world."

"So, Midgard." Thor took a deep breath. "When should I leave?"

* * *

Thor had never had the leisure to look so carefully at Earth when traveling great distances on it.

Properly, Midgard referred to the entire star system - and most likely would the entire local cluster, if humans ever lived up to their current dreams of local space travel but with wormhole travel nearly in their grasp Thor had doubts of that coming to pass - but in general practice it merely meant Earth, the one inhabited world of the system.

It was interesting how diverse even this one continent could be. Most of the other inhabited worlds he'd been to were much more uniform, at least to Asgardian eyes.

He had arrived in New Mexico as before but rather close in towards town, only now SHIELD had a local presence since they knew it was an ideal wormhole travel site so that it was only a matter of an hour waiting in a somewhat uncomfortable chair before travel to New York City could be arranged.

Jane wasn't there anymore, and all the agent in charge would tell him was that she was in a proper research facility now, somewhere on the 'East Coast', Thor didn't know of what.

In a matter of a few hours on a human aircraft, he saw desert blend into fields and then into trees, the flat lands rise into mountains they followed northward, small towns and huge cities.

And then, the not entirely unfamiliar sight of New York City.

A short helicopter ride later, he was at Stark Tower again and a dead man was inviting him inside.

"They told me you were dead," Thor said flatly in shock.

"Technicalities only, there are more than a few definitions of 'dead' we humans use that really mean 'but revive-able if you get there fast enough' with our current technology." Phil led him in. "Tony's working out how to refurbish this place for the use of the Avengers, I've been permanently reassigned to you all, and Tasha's been taken off spy duties in the field effective a few weeks after you left."

It took a moment for Thor to realize he meant Natasha. He hadn't been aware modern Midgardians used as many varied nicknames as his own people did or the Norsemen had. "Where is everyone? I need to speak to all, and to Fury."

"Bruce and I are the only ones here right now. Pepper's off doing something for Stark Industries, either that or she's checking out carpet colors behind Tony's back again, but she'll be back by nightfall. Everyone else is at Carter's funeral."

"Who?"

"Margaret Carter. She was one of the founders of SHIELD, and before Steve was frozen..."

The trail-off gave Thor all the hint he needed. Even Asgardians had tales of those split when a man did not come back from a war, the wailing of women when those they had barely begun to court were called to Valhalla - one of the few times where lamenting a warrior's proper death in glory was considered appropriate. "There was love there?"

"Never admitted by either side. I understand he got there just in time to say goodbye. She was in her nineties, it's a miracle she was still around at all."

When Loki had been in his nineties, he had still thought any attention from their father was good attention and neither of them had been trusted with even dulled metal blades until they were well past their two-hundredth year. Thor had never been so struck by how different their lifespans were before. He was obviously going to have to think about what this would mean for he and Jane, if there was to be anything of substance there at all, because clearly a long Asgardian-style courtship over decades was out of the question.

If he could afford a relationship at all, with an unknown enemy about and a mind-wrecked brother to care for.

"So," Phil asked next, "what brings you back to Earth?"

"Something has happened and I fear I can only get out the words once." Loki would have once been proud of him for managing that little bit of deceit, for Thor truly doubted he would be able to get the words out at all. "When will they return?"

"Tomorrow. The funeral is this afternoon - they're probably already at the graveside by now. I can call Fury, he'll be sure to get the message when it's over."

Thor nodded and collapsed on Tony Stark's couch to wait.


	3. Chapter 3

Phil spent the entire time waiting for the rest of the Avengers to return wondering just what exactly could have rattled Thor.

Thor, for goodness' sake. The man who played with lightning - lightning! - as if it were nothing to be afraid of. He hadn't been this dejected in spirit when he'd been in custody after failing to pick up Mjolnir. He'd been close after SHIELD took Loki into custody.

Bruce was taking care of him. Thor wouldn't like that framing, but Phil didn't know what else to call making sure he remembered to eat.

"If I had known it would be this long," he told both of them and Pepper when they were all eating breakfast upstairs the next morning, "I would have waited a day."

"It's nothing urgent, then?" Pepper asked him.

"No. It wasn't when I left. But I would rather be waiting at home than here."

"Our company's that bad?" Bruce joked.

Phil tried to hold in a laugh.

It was easy, in a way, given the joke came from Bruce. It was a shame to Phil, now that he'd gotten to know Bruce Banner as more than his file, that SHIELD and the rest of the government had treated him so badly for so long.

Especially since when Bruce was being treated like just another person - well, not exactly like, more like a person with some very specific trauma disorder symptoms - the risk of the Hulk _needing_ to come out to defend them was much lower. And, it was now clear, the Hulk tended to defend or at least not harm people who had treated _Bruce_ well.

"No, but I would rather be with my family right now."

JARVIS spoke up. "Your pardons, but Mr. Stark and the others have just arrived downstairs."

* * *

"Thor, why did you want to talk to _all_ of us?" Steve asked him when they had all settled into chairs around the big dining room table Tony had only gotten when the Avengers had all set up semi-official residence. He looked ragged, but given everything that had happened since they'd all been together that was to be expected.

"I'm interested in knowing that myself," Fury commented.

"My brother was compromised."

Fury leaned forward. "Loki was working for someone else?"

"In a way. There was a pain-inducing mental block against discussing it and there was a method for tracking him. He fought the block to warn me he could be tracked. Father knew, and he diverted us to an empty but breathable world until that could be removed."

"Who was controlling him?" Natasha asked.

"We don't know. He barely managed to tell us he was compromised."

"And after the blocks were removed?" she continued.

Thor fell silent.

"It was more advanced than what he did to me, wasn't it?" Clint asked. "More durable. Greater allowed volition. It wasn't just layered over his mind, it was embedded in it."

Thor nodded mournfully. "It was so skillfully done I noticed nothing until he fought it."

Silence as the implications set in.

Phil almost felt sorry about blasting him out of the helicarrier now.

"He's gibbering, isn't he?" Trust Tony to finally say what they were all thinking. "He was tracked, time mattered, there was no capacity to be careful removing it all."

"Gibbering?" Thor asked.

"Sounding like a child first trying to talk," Steve explained. "Broken syllables. Outright babbling. Here and there something that might be a try at structure."

Thor shook his head. "Apart from rare pain cries, nothing. He clearly knows family from not, understands that he has to chew food, and he understands bathrooms well enough even though Mother won't let him bathe properly yet for fear he might drown himself on accident in standing water."

_Asgardians don't do showers, then,_ Phil caught himself thinking absent-mindedly.

"There are signs of further improvement, and he is _far_ better than he was when he came home, but they are slowing down."

More silence.

"Damn." Clint's voice was shaking.

"So, we have an unknown enemy who can turn an Asgardian's mind into swiss cheese. Is there any _other_ bad news SHIELD needs to be made aware of?"

"Strictly speaking," Thor started tentatively - and that let Phil know whatever he said was going to be bad, because Thor simply didn't _do_ tentative ever - "he is not."

Natasha leaned forward. "Your brother losing his mind isn't bad news?"

"He is adopted."

"Adopted." Fury was staring at him.

"He was abandoned at birth by an enemy of Asgard, one with whom we were actively at war. Our people stormed a temple and there was Loki, wailing on an altar. I was still a baby myself then, and Father had no heart to leave an infant to die alone and hungry and frightened no matter where he had come from. By biology, my brother is not Asgardian no matter how much he is by family and raising."

"And you didn't think this was important enough to tell us in detail?" Natasha quietly remarked as Fury seethed.

"I let you all know what his strengths and weaknesses were. He was raised as one of us. The precise nature of his origins seemed immaterial to me."

"He introduced himself as being 'of Asgard' the night he arrived," Fury informed them all.

"The problem is that we have no way of knowing if he remembers that or not," Thor continued. "He treats me and my parents as trusted family, but if he doesn't remember that he isn't ours by blood now, and does later..."

"That was what drove him over the edge when you were in New Mexico," Phil suddenly realized. "Everything he thought he knew about the world was wrong."

Thor nodded. "Or so he thought. He treated us like family again in the little bit we had together before... before he lost himself."

"And that's the bad news."

Thor shook his head. "News of his ancestry leaked. Asgard and the Jotun have been mortal enemies until recently. Providing security to preserve his life is difficult now and may soon become impossible there. As it is, it's not safe to remove him from the royal quarters. The security required is not worth it."

Clint cursed under his breath.

"And he's the _only_ one who has any idea who was actually behind the Chitauri attack? Who knows who his handler was?" Bruce asked with particularly unnatural calm.

"Yes."

Fury rubbed his temples. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"If we want to have half a chance if there's a revenge attack?" Tony added. "No, we don't." He took a deep breath. "Housing him here's probably the best option - we're already a target simply by existing and who knows, it might jostle some memories loose."

"I need anything and everything anyone ever saw him say or do," Natasha continued for him. "Thor, that means everything since he could have been compromised and the best idea you can give me about what he was like before - both when he thought you were his biological brother and after he learned otherwise. And I want _everything_ he said and did after you left and before the control mechanisms got ripped out. I don't care how personal it gets - if he managed to hint something, even subconsciously..."

"He would want it to have been heard," Thor finished. "He told me there were things he said that were true and things he said that were not true while he was here, but he couldn't stand the pain needed to let me know which were which."

She nodded. "I'll try to work through that. It might give us something to go on."

"It won't just be mental trauma from the removal. He's going to have conditioning from induced pain at the very least," Bruce told them. "If not outright torture when they were preparing him to be their dupe."

Thor looked like he was going to be sick.

"At least threats of it," Steve added. "And since he knew he was being tracked, he's probably be terrified he'll be found even if he doesn't know where that fear is coming from."

"If there was a way to help with the damage, I could get more out of him," Natasha offered.

"I'm the world's current expert on staying calm. Get him here, and I may be able to help if he doesn't remember me and the other guy clearly enough to shut down around me."

"Maybe you could help before we move him," Thor pondered.

"Not happening. I transform by heartrate. I'm a scientist. Stick me in a wormhole, and the other guy _will_ come out the other end."

"If he follows me home, can I keep him?" Tony asked Fury with a straight face.

Pepper glared at him.

"Anyone opposed?" Fury asked.

Shaken heads.

"Good. Thor, start arranging things your end. Tony, get a place ready for them here - Thor, tell him anything you need. I'll check about paperwork and try to keep things quiet."

"Anything I need to know?" Tony asked.

"He can still use some appearance-altering magics without access to Asgardian technology, although I have not seen him do so yet. We cannot yet leave him alone for more than a minute or two, so best if you plan for us to share a room. Racially... by birth he is a frost giant. Becoming too hot has never been a problem for him in the past, but since he cannot self-regulate by moving around yet..."

"He'll get overheated in ways he didn't before. Cool room then, with a plan toward cool foods. JARVIS?"

"Calculating, sir."

Fury stood to leave. "I hope I don't end up regretting this."

"Better than regretting _not_ doing this if there's another attack," Steve said bitterly under his breath after Fury had left.

"Tony, we need to have a little talk," Pepper said breezily.

Phil leaned forward. That was usually a sign she was very intent on getting her way.

"Oh?"

"The Loki-sized hole in the floor. What happens if he sees it?"

"Pepper..."

"She has a point," Bruce added as backup.

"But... it's like our sign to anyone else who tries anything that See We Did This!"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "No one in the local area will know about that. They were from farther away than Asgard knew about, right Thor?"

Thor nodded. "But with wormholes there is no true close and far once the technology and power supply capabilities are high enough, only knowledge of where another world is. But given that they needed to use the Tesseract to even get Loki to Earth, it will take a while for a response if any comes." He tilted his head. "I will note that the hole is the size of a large human. Any observer not aware it was Loki may assume a less formidable opponent made it."

"At least put Plexiglass on it, I've nearly walked in twice this week."

"Okay, I'll cover it," Tony gave in.

"I need to see to my family," Thor said in way of explaining his turn to the door. "Steve Rogers, my condolences."

"Thank you."

When he was gone, Phil quietly said, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but I know you needed the space."

Steve nodded. "I did."

"How was the funeral?" Pepper asked.

Tony quipped, "The preacher needed smashing."

"Really?"

"Tony!"

"He did, Pepper," Natasha remarked.

Bruce leaned in as far as looked to be even reasonably comfortable. "Now this I've got to hear..."


	4. Chapter 4

It was apparent the moment Loki arrived on Midgard that his people-identifying abilities had recovered to far beyond the point Thor had thought they had.

His eyes darted around, taking them all in and even though they had all dressed as plainly as they could, the rising fear was obvious.

And then he looked at Thor.

There was a flash of what Natasha couldn't interpret as anything but a deep feeling of betrayal on his face.

And then the awareness in his eyes fled.

"Thor, I think he knows us," Tony said frankly.

Natasha couldn't resist the urge to smack him on the arm.

"He was like this in the beginning," Thor noted with no small regret as he steered an unresisting Loki toward the waiting van. "Awake, but not home."

_Dissociation._ "He's trying to keep from being hurt."

"By letting us do whatever we want to him with no resistance? That makes no sense. Becoming helpless is no means to protect anything."

"If his mind isn't home, all we can hurt is his body. I've seen it in torture victims before," Steve told him. "Your brother doesn't think he has a chance to keep himself from being harmed, so he's making sure he's not around when it happens."

Thor's head tilted.

"We'll have Jane explain it to you," Tony said with a roll of his eyes. "She's meeting us in New York. She's at an academic conference, but she can stay for a few days afterwards without harming her research."

Thor brightened a little.

Loki didn't even stir when they belted him into the seat. Or when the van started moving. Or a few hours later when the sun rose outside and the sky brightened.

_It's worse than I thought it could be,_ Natasha realized.

* * *

What could he have done wrong?

He must have done something wrong or the tall one who looked out for him wouldn't have brought him here where people who brought only disjointed memories of pain were and it was so hot just outside he could feel that it was and he was always doing things wrong wasn't he, when _they_ weren't there to give guidance and _they_ weren't there anymore were _they_ were _they_?

No _they_ weren't and _they_ should be and why had _they_ abandoned him? Why couldn't he even feel the passive touch he'd felt the few times _they_ 'd left him completely to himself that he could barely remember? Not even the waiting he could vaguely remember when he'd traveled somewhere and it took a few seconds or minutes for _them_ to re-secure the connection.

This wasn't what happened to Failures. Failures were tracked, reacquired, and used for practice of full-control. He had a vague and disjointed memory of watching it done. And of never wanting to witness it again.

So he wasn't a Failure. But he could become one and he didn't know and what rule had he broken and what was going to happen to him and couldn't he be breaking a rule now and just not know it...

Talking around him. He couldn't _quite_ make out what was being said. He was better at it than he had been since... well since he didn't know what.

Maybe that was what he'd gotten wrong.

He was trying to be good, with what he could piece together. He'd remembered the first rule: no eating no drinking. Not without permission, and permission for someone who'd done nothing for _them_ of use - and he was sure he hadn't - meant full-control. Skilled full-control, but control.

What had happened the one time he'd dared try to get around it was the sort of thing one never forgot. Even if the details were hazy and the memory warped. Still there. Still horrible.

Still _likely,_ if _they_ didn't accept that he'd had food and water forced on him. That he hadn't felt anything from _them_ since... since...

It didn't make sense it didn't make sense it didn't make sense...

He'd even resisted when the people who'd always looked out for him tried to make him hungry enough to break the rule. Even when he went over a day without, he hadn't bent. Been forced when they realized he wasn't about to defy _them_ or worse _**him**_ , but not voluntarily.

Maybe that would be enough when contact came again, maybe _they_ 'd accept it...

_No, they won't. Ever._

He ignored it. That was the second lesson, after all: everything you thought you knew is wrong, better to trust _them_ and be sure.

Even Failures were permitted the mercy of not being able to fail again.

The tall one wrapped an arm around him, pulled him close.

He didn't resist, in case that would be wrong. It was the closest thing to an order he had to go by.

_He's trying to be comforting, you fool!_

And having an order to follow was comforting wasn't it so much better than not having any idea what he ought to be doing.

And even though he thought most of what he thought he knew about the tall one came from before he'd entered _their_ service, he had a reasonably clear memory of being told by him that he had a place he should be in or of being told exactly what his role in some plan or other was. Repeatedly, over many years, and the oldest was when they had both been small.

So he had a place and he was trying to stay in it even if he wasn't exactly sure what it was and he had an order and even though it wasn't one of _their_ orders it didn't go against any he could remember and that was enough for now.

Trying to make decisions for himself was just too risky.

_You can do whatever you want, they've lost control and if they catch you...!_

Freedom is a lie freedom is a lie freedom is a lie freedom is a lie...

* * *

Natasha was very glad they hadn't brought Bruce or Clint when it came time to stop for lunch and Thor had to feed his brother in the van as they went down the road, just so no one would see and draw the wrong conclusion.

The facing bench seats meant she and Steve had no option but to watch.

"You have to do that every meal?" Tony asked from the passenger seat as Thor finally cleaned up Loki's face with the napkins from the to-go bag.

Forcing someone to eat a double cheeseburger in little torn-off bites with a battle over each one made a mess of whoever was eating.

At least the water they'd spilled would dry off eventually, even with how cranked up the AC was to keep Loki cool.

"Yes, ever since he was strong enough and aware enough to fight us. The first few days were easier."

"I think I liked it better when he was a bag of cats," Steve remarked. "He didn't make much sense, but he was talking."

"I disagree," Phil called from the driver's seat. "I like the Not Trying To Kill Me part of this. Which, as I recall, has happened the past two times he's had dealings with Earth."

"I'm not so sure that's true dissociation, then. He didn't act differently when he was fighting you."

"No, he didn't," Tony confirmed for her.

"I have to agree," Steve added.

"... If it is not this thing you call 'dissociation'?"

"Thor, stuff got ripped out of his mind. It was sharing space with everything he knew and was before they got their hands on him, whoever they are, everything they did to him, and memories of what happened to him here during the invasion attempt. And we have no clue where the damage was done or what started healing back first. It's possible most of what he's got to work with now is whatever they did to him." Her voice was trending upwards and she didn't like that, didn't like this, didn't like any of it, and the look in his eyes when it'd happened, the little flash of hopeless defiance she'd caught...

"Nat, what is it?" Tony asked.

She shook her head vehemently. _Not around Thor. I'm sure an Asgardian wouldn't understand, they're so rigid in everything else... Please don't try!_

Steve put an arm around her and pulled her closer on the bench seat. "Whatever it is, it isn't now and it isn't here, Natka," he murmured into her ear.

She nodded and leaned into him.

It was good to have people around who _knew_ , who didn't count her as less for what had happened when she was nine - hell, who counted making your own way out of a brothel after being abducted that young as a resume line to be bolded and underlined, no matter what had happened before she got out - but would still give support and stuffed bears wearing _ushankas._

And if _anyone_ had told her when she was eight that Captain America - _Captain America!_ \- would one day be willing to be her personal knight with shining shield every now and then as anything but a joke, well the Party still had people you could report neighbors that disconnected from reality to in nearly every town even then, for public safety.

She caught Loki's quick glance at them from the other side of the van, and there was something there she couldn't quite make sense of at the moment before he looked away again, apparently satisfied with whatever he thought he'd figured out.

When they'd stopped and Tony had accompanied Thor to give Loki a secure chance at a bathroom visit at an old run-down gas station, Phil turned around in his seat. "What was it, Tasha?"

"The look in his eyes, a few times when Thor was making him eat." She couldn't hold the tears in any longer.

A squeeze from Steve. "What about it, Natka?"

"Some of the other girls, the ones who had given up on anything but trying to keep from being hurt, _they had that look!_ "

Tony only complained a little for show when he came back to discover Natasha'd been moved to his former seat up front next to Phil and was using his jacket as a surrogate bear.


	5. Chapter 5

They traveled during the days and slept in SHIELD safehouses during the nights.

They had tried to have Tony drive the first night, to get to New York that much faster, but Loki had never settled down.

And then it had taken an hour of gentle coaxing when they all exasperatedly gave in to convince Loki that he had not done anything unforgivably horrible by not being able to drop off in a moving vehicle.

Or, that was, to convince him well enough that he could curl up beside Thor on the floor and get a few hours rest when they did make it to a safehouse.

The floor, because he actively resisted a place on the couch or a bed when it became clear that there had to be someone on the floor.

It was oddly hope-inspiring for Tony that the little damaged ball of chaos could still manage basic math and deduction of such simple facts as being led to one of two available bedrooms when six people needed space to sleep meaning that unless he did something he would not be on the floor and someone else would.

It still spoke badly of his mental state.

Even in Tony's worst moments of never believing anything would be enough for his father - shortly after his graduation from MIT had been a mostly 'well of _course_ he finished early, his hobbies all counted for course credit' quiet affair in private with the public celebration perfunctory as hell - he'd never believed he wasn't worthy of sleeping on anything better than the floor. Sure, he'd woken up hungover on the floor after some drunken private parties over the years, but what else were floors at drunken private parties for, anyway?

But that warped mental state, Tony knew, could be worked with. Given the choice of someone with logic but what seemed to amount to Doormat Syndrome or someone with a decent sense of self-worth but no logic, he'd honestly prefer the doormat.

They'd just have to give Loki some better data to work with.

Like Thor spending the night on the floor with him, an arm wrapped around him as they shared a pillow and a folded-out sleeping bag for a blanket.

Like sticking him in the passenger seat with Thor's hand on his shoulder as they passed through farm country where no one would notice him enough to wonder, letting him have the same turn everyone else was getting.

(They hadn't, however, been fool enough to let him stay there when they got to rivers. Thor had kept his brother's eyes covered the entire time they were crossing the bridges, especially the Mississippi just a little while ago.)

They had stopped at Sharon's a few hours ago for lunch, once Phil 'realized' they were close (or, rather, let Steve know since he and Tony had planned that out from the moment they'd all decided they would need to transport Loki by land). Only for the hour or so it took to eat, for Steve to assure himself the headstone was where it should be on Peggy's grave, and for Phil to pay his own respects, but it had given Loki an hour in a reasonably normal American human home.

Sharon had even let the feeding battle happen in the house, much as the fact it needed to happen at all clearly made her uneasy.

And, since it was taking twice as long to get to New York as they had planned...

Loki's hair was still wet from his apparently-first experience in a Western-style indoor shower. Considering they'd had to manage it by sticking him in the bathroom clothed with the water running, soap in his hand, and clean clothes and a towel on a storage cabinet beside the tub, he seemed to have figured things out rather well.

Thor had sworn their mother was the only one he'd let wash him even in the first days, and given what he'd told them all about Loki begging her to "care for him" in his last mentally-intact moments, it was clear to Tony at least that Loki'd had a fair view of exactly who he was likely to trust after he'd lost his mind.

Which raised some interesting questions about how _Loki_ had viewed Odin and Thor even before he'd had his not-so-little adoption-revelation-induced mental breakdown in Asgard, even before he'd been mind controlled.

"Thor, are you sure you gave Loki enough to eat? I know you were getting worried about Sharon at the end," Steve called back from the passenger seat.

_We were_ all _getting worried about Sharon at the end, Capsicle,_ Tony thought. _Two weeks, and she's had to deal with her great-aunt dying, the man who might have been her great-uncle showing up on her doorstep as if literally back from the dead, a quarter of SHIELD having a post-burial wake in her house, and now aliens in her shower and kitchen with nothing but a few days' warning._

_It's a wonder she didn't try to resign._

"I was thinking of letting him eat before us this evening," Thor answered back. "It feels wrong that he is always last. As if he might think his basic needs were an afterthought."

"It _is_ wrong, Thor," Natasha said quietly. "And he's not sticking up for himself at all."

"Which means we ought to," Phil finished.

"So, same burger chain as last time?" Tony asked.

"He has not complained any more than he did at home," Thor told him in answer. "Which merely means it does not suit him ill, I suppose. But we were giving him his old favorites at home."

"What was he like, before?" Natasha asked. "I know you've given me details, but what was he like overall? What was he going to be?"

"My brother is not what both our peoples would consider an inventor, although he is - was - well-versed in the scientific arts, which would be recognized by you as science and technological-magic. He was not skilled in creating new devices - few in our world are, our understanding of the basic rules of the universe has been advanced for so long - but he could look at something another had designed, even something generations' old - even our generations - and think of a dozen new uses for it. How to turn a holographic generator into a combat weapon. A thousand ways to trick the eye using commonplace technologies no one would question allowing him access to. We, ah, discounted him because he was no great warrior by use of strength, but what he was..." A gentle grunt was followed by the tiniest of protests from Loki, and a quick check in the rear-view mirror confirmed that someone had just been hugged too tightly out of what was for him nowhere. "Now that he is different, I appreciate what he was better. I just wish he could know that. And if I had known sooner..."

No one had an answer for that.

* * *

He was feeling a little guilty, but otherwise very satisfied.

They were treating him well, despite the memories he had of them. Maybe he was lucky and they understood he wasn't at his best. Whatever his best actually was, since he couldn't remember that.

And he was keeping as well in his place as he could, little as he remembered of what it actually was.

He'd even figured out that little trap the first night with them of trying to get him to accept sleeping out of his proper place, first when they tried to get him to sleep here while they were traveling and then when they tried to get him to displace one of them from a bed.

He hadn't fallen for it. Not for a second.

He'd been rewarded well. The tall one had stayed with him, even let him share a pillow and thick blanket. It was warmer than he'd like, but the others knew what he needed better than he did.

And he'd kept doing it, every night since they'd come here!

He must be acting properly.

Which was where some of the guilt was coming from, because he was still being treated like someone who did as he should and obeyed _them_ properly when he had broken a rule today.

A very big one.

On this world, they washed in something that reminded him of a vague memory of cleaning himself in the wild where a stream dropped over a ledge.

_It's called a waterfall. And that was after you and the others hid behind it until your enemies exhausted themselves looking for you and went home dejected and victory-less._

It was his first time encountering such plumbing, but they had trusted him alone with it.

He had realized when he started rinsing off - it was so much easier than the rag-and-unstopped-basin bathing he'd been allowed, for of course he hadn't proved himself enough for the temptation that was standing water - that if he was unmindful of how he positioned himself, he'd get spray on his face.

And so he had been intentionally very uncareful, and kept his lips parted the rest of the time he was in the presence of the water on top of that.

The rule, the rule of rules, and he'd violated it in spirit.

And the tall one and the others had already fed him, and he knew by now it would be hours until they ate again and his turn wouldn't be until after.

He was quite full of water now, even just from the small intentionally accidental drink he'd gotten, but it didn't matter because he'd be empty again before they fed him. They never need know.

But he'd broken a rule a rule a rule the rule of rules and if anyone ever figured it out horror horror horror no no no...

_A cup of water no one will ever miss means_ nothing _compared to what you've already done._

_They_ would find out, _they_ always did, _they_ had ways.

The slowing that indicated they would be stopping soon, and the familiar stretching and chatter that accompanied a meal stop.

And he was still full of illicit water consumed against _the_ rule of all _their_ and, worse, _**his**_ rules.

Panic.

It was only a little later, and well before they stopped, when the woman said something sharply to everyone else.

They didn't feed him that meal. He sat in the van, and the tall one and the woman simply switched who was watching him, probably so the other could go eat. She unbuckled him from the seat and tried to coax him into walking around a little inside, but he couldn't tell if it was a trap or not with the tall one gone and stayed where he was until she gave in and refastened the restraint.

Restraints were good. They told you exactly where you were supposed to be and wouldn't let you be anywhere else.

That night they offered food just before he was supposed to sleep, but when he dutifully turned his head away they left him alone.

He lay beside the tall one that night, feigning sleep, feeling miserable inside from guilt and hunger, and wondering when his punishment would end. Or properly begin, once they or worse _they_ figured out exactly what he had done.

What few times he dropped off were marred by nightmares and he could barely keep awake as he should the next morning when their journey began again after a quick meal that did nothing to fill him, as if they'd realized he wasn't going to make it easy on them to make him break the rules again and had cut back what they were forcing into him.

He'd just have to do better he would he would and no more sneaking anything, not when he could give himself away so easily.

And there was still no contact from _them_.


	6. Chapter 6

Phil drove the last leg to New York City.

It didn't matter that Tony was used to taking phone calls during independent flight - cell phone laws were cell phone laws. The last thing they needed now that they were in New York state was being pulled over, even if their governmental status would probably get them away with a warning or nothing.

"Hey, Pepper."

"Are you close?"

"In-state. I hope everything's ready by now?"

"It is. And Bruce and Clint are both here ready to help out." A pause. "Please tell me you aren't driving."

"Phil's driving. I took this morning."

"Mind telling him hello?"

He turned in his seat and held the phone towards the driver's seat. "Hello, Phil."

"Hi, Pepper!"

Tony turned back and brought the phone to his ear again. "Yeah, about Clint and Bruce. Clint needs to not be there for his own sake when we bring Loki in, and Bruce probably needs to be gone for Loki's sake. Or at least where Loki isn't going to see he's there." Tony hated saying it, but with Loki being worse the past few days...

"He got worse?"

"I think so. None of us have any way of knowing, but he definitely looks more dejected since we crossed the Mississippi. Trying to make sense of him is taking everything Natasha's got, and if we didn't have her..."

"I'll warn Clint. I'm not sure I agree with you about Bruce."

"Pepper... he's recognized all of us who fought him. _All_ of us." Tony rubbed his forehead with his other hand. "He'll probably remember that where Bruce is, the other guy is too. And that didn't go well when last they met."

The telltale rustle of a hand covering a phone mike.

"Pepper, don't!" Tony said as loudly as he dared with Loki in the back of the van.

The muffled sound of, "Bruce! I need you to talk to Tony!"

"No, I don't!" he shot back helplessly.

He sighed. At least Pepper's ideas usually turned out for the best. And when they didn't, they were still good ideas.

He'd just have to trust her and let her enjoy her 'I told you so' later. Same as always.

"Tony, Bruce here. What's going on?"

"We're nearly back to the city. Loki's... emotionally worse."

"What do you need? I don't know a thing about his biology, and I've not got half the knowledge of alien psychologies Natasha has. Now, if he was a cholera-stricken confused human five-year-old, those I know how to deal with..."

"He's recognized the rest of us. I don't know in how much detail, but enough to know we've hurt him in the past."

"Oh." The difference the two sentences made in Bruce's displayed emotions made Tony feel vaguely ill. "I see."

"Bruce... I..."

"Something to consider," Bruce said evenly, "is whether or not he'll deduce I must be around somewhere since everyone else is. Will knowing where I am or not knowing where I am scare him more?"

"I don't... ugh. Do you know if he saw the other guy coming when they met?"

A very dark chuckle. "Yes. By about a second. But he was facing that way."

Tony rubbed his temples. "Then maybe it _would_ be better for him to know where you are. Damn, this is getting complicated."

"Tony, think of it this way: he isn't your responsibility. He's Thor's. You're just providing a safe place for him to heal where he won't be hunted because of where he was born and to whom. If he really remembers the battle well enough to identify us, then he knows you've hurt him in the past. Shelter's probably more than he expects from you as it is."

" _Water's_ more than he expects from anyone as it is, Bruce," Tony hissed.

A few very deep very audible breaths.

_The other guy_ knows _Pepper,_ Tony quickly reminded himself. _The other guy_ likes _Pepper. And she isn't afraid of him, not after that upstate trip they took when Phil was still injured._ And really, after that trip, the Hulk was far more likely to look to her for aid in identifying someone to smash than to harm her even in the case of a sudden emergency transformation.

Which was good. Very good.

"Really?"

"Bruce, I wasn't kidding when I told you he has to be force-fed."

"But _water_? Seriously water?"

"Seriously water."

A pause. "Tony, I... I think I have a hypothesis."

"Please tell me you can test it in the lab. The lab makes sense. I have half a mind to move into the lab and not come out until either he's fixed or I've figured out marketable cold fusion."

"Tony, cold fusion requires..."

"I _know_ , that's the point."

A laugh from Bruce and matching titters from the back of the van.

"So what's the hypothesis?"

"That it isn't from the injury."

"Bruce, what do you mean?

"Oh look, Pepper wants the phone back. Here you go, Pepper."

"Bruce, don't..."

"Hi, Tony. Look, if dinner's going to be on the table when you get here we need to go ahead and arrange it, so can you give me an idea what you've been giving Loki?"

"Fast food cheeseburgers. The plain kind. Condiments are okay, but pickles are a problem and forget lettuce or tomato."

"So something that can be made bite-sized."

"Exactly."

"Alright, we'll have something on the table for everyone."

"Thor's been feeding him separately..."

"...and that's going to change immediately if I have anything to say about it, Tony. I'll see you tonight." She made a light kiss noise into the microphone.

"Pepper, don't..."

**Click.**

"Pepper will have everything set for dinner when we get there," he announced shakily.

He glanced over at Phil.

Phil was barely holding in a chuckle.

Tony settled for glaring at him the rest of the way home.

* * *

It was completely predictable, to Phil at least and he was fairly sure Tony had figured the same, that Clint would take a good look at Loki's current state, do a little mental figuring, and promptly look ill.

He spun on his heel and made for what was probably the nearest bathroom he knew about.

_Well, that's one introduction done with, on the Earth side at least._

Loki didn't seem to know what to make of Pepper, but then they had never met. After a few moments of her talking softly to him despite everyone reminding her he'd shown no signs of understanding language, he seemed to settle on considering her trustworthy and kind.

And then he caught sight of Bruce and the party was on.

For the standard Avengers' definition of 'party' which included everything from the low end of discovering someone you cared about was an abuse survivor and hadn't told you yet to the high end of a full-scale extra-planetary invasion.

In this case, said party involved an alien prince faking a fainting spell on the floor of Tony Stark's personal garage, and the only reason they were actually sure he was faking was that Thor swore he'd seen Loki faint before and his breathing had not slowed nearly that far back then. Meaning he was probably consciously slowing it down.

Bruce knelt beside him. "Hey, Loki. Nothing to be afraid unless you make there be something to be afraid of, okay?" He reached out a hand and started brushing Loki's hair back. "See? I'm not hurting you. Everything's fine. And now we're all going to go upstairs and eat."

No response from Loki.

"What were you saying about a hypothesis?" Tony asked.

"Later," Bruce answered back in the same near sing-song tones he'd been using. "When Loki doesn't have to listen to us arguing. Damn, I've known scared sick street kids who were better off than this."

"Thus the warning," Phil told him.

"Right. Tony..."

"Hey, it's okay. You didn't expect anything coming from me to seem like bigotry, and oh look it did. But he's just so..."

Bruce nodded.

Thor obviously couldn't take it anymore and picked his brother off the ground. "My apologies, but I fear he will not be ready to eat or drink anything until long after he recovers from this and our journey."

Tony nodded. "Probably couldn't keep anything down right now. We try eating together tomorrow?"

Everyone agreed. Pepper left with the brothers so they could find the temporary room Tony had picked out for them for at least as long as it took the renovations to get further along.

"Hypothesis?" Steve asked.

"Failsafe." Bruce's voice was grim.

Tony stared at him. "You mean this was meant to happen."

He nodded. "If I'm right, it won't get better on its own. He'll keep fighting everyone who tries to feed him."

"And I can barely figure him out as it is, without some form of real communication going on," Natasha griped. "Now if we could read his mind, that would be useful."

Phil seemed thoughtful. "Well, as I recall one of the neighbors was investigated by SHIELD for supposed magical phenomena after Thor let us know more advanced realms than ours believe in magic."

It took Tony a moment to realize just which neighbor was meant.

"Oh no, not in my tower. Not the charlatan."

"There were things we couldn't explain that happened while the investigation team was there, Tony." Phil sighed.

He crossed his arms. "No. There's no way a magician can help with a real problem. No use getting Thor's hopes up, either."

Natasha's glanced between them. "Who do you mean?"

"I'm wondering that myself," Steve added absent-mindedly.

"It doesn't matter, it isn't real, he can't do anything, now can we please go eat?"

Natasha shook her head. "I have to go check on Clint first, make sure he's all right now we've got Loki tended. I'll see you all in a little while, but don't wait on us to start."


	7. Chapter 7

"Clint?" Natasha called out.

"Here."

He was in one of the labs, kneeling on the floor and leaning over a trashcan. The smell in the air made it clear he had just finished clearing his stomach of whatever was left of lunch and whatever acid was ready for dinner.

She sat on the cold tiles next to him.

"I didn't think it would be that bad."

She rubbed his back as he dabbed at his mouth with his sleeve. "It is. They meant to control him for longer. You were just a dupe of convenience, at least in Thor's thinking."

He shook his head. "No. They needed my skills. And Selvig's. That was planned."

She sighed. "A temporary dupe, then. Loki... it's like they stacked methods on him."

"He looks like I felt."

She rubbed harder. "That's over now. We know what to look for now, what the strategy is."

"But we still don't know who they were. I certainly didn't know. Selvig can't remember where the connection was to or never actually knew it. The damned device reset when it was deactivated so we can't use that to trace anything and for all any of us know that was just a staging area..."

"Clint, it will be okay. If they try again, we'll stop them."

"Natasha, they _made_ me kill. They nearly made me kill _you._ "

She didn't bother telling him about Loki's threat. She hadn't before, and she didn't plan on ever letting him know anything beyond that his end was planned, that they weren't just going to keep him.

And if Loki ever got his language skills back and showed signs _he_ remembered, he was going to get a little speech about never letting Clint know what the actual plans for their mutual demise were.

"Then the best we can do is to get him well enough to _tell us_ whatever he knows. For them to have that much control over him, and to be able to gain control over you and Selvig second-hand through his actions means they're had _practice_ at mind control, enough that their first two attempts on humans worked in seconds. He was still under their control when Tony blew their invasion base up. His controller and whatever tech was involved their end survived somewhere else."

Clint looked up at her and his eyes were hard.

Neither of them had to say anything. They'd been on enough missions together that skill means training infrastructure, and in this case that meant...

It meant that somewhere off in the midnight sky, _horrors_ were happening. Now. To someone. Someone from somewhere else, but close enough to human for the lessons learned from controlling one to apply to another.

Someone capable of pain, fear, hopelessness, horror, despair...

No matter where they came from, no matter what they looked like or lived like... they were _people_.

"We find the bastards and avenge everything they've done," Clint finally growled.

Natasha nodded. She smiled. "We've Avengers, it's what we do. Right?"

"Right."

"C'mon, let's get you cleaned up." She helped him stand.

"What about the trashcan?"

"Tony's problem for not warning you days ago personally instead of relying on someone who hadn't seen Loki to pass the message on. He can deal with it."

He managed a chuckle as they walked out, JARVIS closing the door and turning off the lights behind them.

* * *

Pepper carded her hand through Loki's hair as he lay on the bed, still doing a fair job of feigning unconsciousness. "You really have to force-feed him?"

"Even at home, when we let him go a day without simply to see what he would do, he had to be forced afterward." Thor patted his brother's shoulder. "He was never the lover of food some of my friends are, but even so, for him to be reduced to this..."

Pepper nodded. "I hope there's a way for us to help." She smiled wryly. "When SHIELD put me through the clearance checks so I could know what Tony's up to without breaking any regulations, I never imagined _this_ was what I'd be dealing with first."

"I am sorry for that, Virginia."

" _Pepper_ , please. And it's no problem. I'd rather have this to deal with than another invasion. This... this is something I feel less helpless about."

"What do you mean?" Thor asked.

"I'm not a warrior like you. Not even like Tony. All I could have done was get out of the way so he wouldn't be distracted trying to save me. My skills lie elsewhere. This? Even with no clue what's going on inside his head, we can try to make him comfortable, try to let him know he's going to be cared for."

Thor nodded.

"It's almost funny in a way."

Thor looked at her oddly.

"When I was a kid, we didn't even know there were other planets outside our own system. We didn't know if planets were rare or common, if having so many was the way planets were or if that made our system strange... it was just us. Every theory, every wild hypothesis, just us."

"I cannot remember being too young to not know there were other realms."

"I was still in school when they found signs of the first we knew of outside our system. And suddenly big planets were everywhere, nothing like our Jupiter. We had thought _Jupiter_ was big!"

Thor smiled. "Indeed. And the universe is a beautiful place."

"Yes. Yes, it is. And now, we've finally got the technology to find other planets like us, and the sky... the sky is full of eyes looking back at us." She sighed. "And here I am, sitting with two aliens born on worlds we may not even be able to see yet." _Wearing jeans and t-shirts, of all things._

"A long way to come in a single lifetime."

"Thor, when Steve was born, we hadn't even put an artificial satellite up yet. We barely had rockets. His parents were born before we had _powered flight_."

Thor stared at her. "Truth?"

"Truth. The first man to walk on our moon died only a little while ago. If you hadn't needed to go home so soon, and you'd expressed an interest, SHIELD might have been able to arrange a meeting with him for you."

"So fast to come so far."

"We're still adjusting." She shook her head. "People are still in denial about the invasion, simply because accepting it happened means admitting aliens exist. We still have people who won't believe the moon landing happened. Or that evolution is real."

"I was under the impression biology was already a respected science on this world."

"Depends on who you ask." Loki stirred under her hand. "It's okay, Bruce is gone," she told him.

"We're certain he doesn't understand language yet," Thor told her.

"Doesn't matter. It's still worth treating him like he's there."

"Indeed." He smiled broadly at her, and she knew he'd consider her an ally in her own right now, even if only in terms of taking care of his brother.

She thought of the food waiting on them all, the dinner she'd specifically picked so that Loki would be roughly eating the same as everyone else in the room.

"Thor?"

"Yes, Pepper?"

"What _is_ it like when he eats right now? 'Messy' is all anyone's told me beyond what he's been fed."

Thor closed his eyes for a moment.

_I thought I was trusted enough for that to be an acceptable question. Was I wrong?_

She wasn't wrong. It just took a little while for Thor to respond.

"He tries to keep his head away and his mouth closed. Once something is in his mouth, he will chew and swallow on his own. But it is the same way every bite, no matter how long he was kept hungry."

"And he never tries to harm the person feeding him?"

"Not even once.. No bites, no struggle enough to make bruises. There was one night when Natasha told me not to try because she thought there was genuine terror in his eyes instead of mere protest. I backed off rather than risk harming him. I offered him food again before he went to sleep, but I did not have the heart to push when he turned away."

"Hmm. Oh!"

"What?" Thor's eyes were bright. "Do you think you know what is wrong with him?"

"I... think I may have an idea. And Bruce has a hypothesis he didn't tell us two, because Loki was there. Maybe if we all come up with what we think is going on and compare them, we might be able to figure some things out."

"What do you think?" Thor asked her as he looked down on Loki.

"He's like Tony when he really needs to do something but either doesn't want to or feels like he can't for some reason. Foot-dragging, but eventually willing. I think Loki _wants_ to eat, but he doesn't think he can _let_ himself."

"A mental block against the act of eating, then." There was a stomach-rumbling. "That was not me."

"Or me. I guess that's as good a sign as he can give us that he needs food. I'll be back with the plates for you two in a few minutes."

Thor nodded, and she left.

Once she was in the hall and a good distance away, she said, "JARVIS?"

"Yes, Pepper?"

"Don't let Loki know you're here. I don't know how he'd take a voice from nowhere and it may be a good thing if he doesn't know everything in this building is observed."

"I had calculated the same, and Mr. Stark has already made a similar request."

She smiled. It was always good when they agreed on something. Made life easier.

And at this point, anything being easier than it had to be was a blessing.


	8. Chapter 8

Pepper walked into the room. Phil relaxed a little, knowing she wouldn't have left unless the Asgardians were settled in.

"Bite-sized finger-food for everyone?" Tony asked.

She matched his gaze. "It was the easiest way I could think of to make him feel like he belongs here as an equal instead of luggage. Feeding him after everyone else, in private when no one else ate in the van, and constantly the same cheap food... Tony, what were you thinking?"

"It was what we could find, and we couldn't have all eaten at the same time since we were on the road..."

"You were feeding him on the move even after you found out being in the van and in motion makes him too uneasy to sleep?" Bruce broke in.

"Thor said he wasn't acting any different," Phil added, wondering if it was worth getting involved before things escalated to requiring tazing.

"And Thor Odinson is the sort of person who is usually in tune with the emotional states of others? I mean, this _is_ force-feeding we're talking about. If he'd jerked from a bump..."

"It wasn't true force-feeding," Steve corrected.

"Thor just told me the same, Bruce," Pepper concurred. "Once it's in his mouth, he eats it. The problem is getting food that far."

Bruce swore very calmly, but the vocabulary gave away just how much that fact bothered him.

"What is it?" Steve asked. "Match your theory?"

He nodded.

Tony leaned forward. "So, what are we dealing with?"

"I think he _wants_ to eat, but can't let himself," Pepper said frankly. "I think I'll stay there while Thor's feeding him, just to observe and be certain, but he's not really fighting with a hope of winning, is he? Not if he backs down like that."

Bruce nodded. "I'm guessing it's a failsafe."

"What do you mean?" Phil asked. "There are multiple control systems that were clearly in effect."

"They had control of him until he left Earth. Did anyone see him eat? No? Then we don't know how he was eating while being controlled. Or how often, or what."

Pepper sat down. "So they meant this to happen, you think?"

"Well, to put it bluntly if he'd gone where they couldn't make contact or someone who didn't care too much about him was the one to rip everything out, he'd have died a few times over by now. At best, what he's been doing would be seen as a hunger strike and he'd be force-fed the ugly way." Bruce leaned on the table and gestured with a fork. "He needs permission, at the least, and that permission is never happening again."

"That's not a failsafe," Phil said in the silence that followed.

"It's a kill switch," Pepper finished with clear horror in her voice.

"We can't be certain that's what it is," Tony reminded them all.

"We could always get another opinion," Pepper offered. "Besides ours and Natasha's, and I think she's been more concerned in symptom management than figuring out the causes?"

Steve nodded. "She has."

"Well, then, we just need to find someone else cleared by SHIELD for dealing with our visitors who has some experience in observational psychology and get another opinion."

"That list is rather short," Bruce told them all. "And better than half are people I don't want within two miles of me if I have anything to say about it."

_More like if the Hulk does,_ Phil thought.

"Tony, aren't you always telling me carnival mind-reading is always done with body clues and subtle hints in tone?

"It is, Pepper." A pause. "Oh no. No. Not in the Tower."

"Tony, either SHIELD was right and Dr. Strange can do legitimate work, or he's not really capable of what he says he is but _can_ do the same kind of deductions we've been doing well and from a completely different angle. Either way, we get a window into what's going on."

"No, we _may_ get a window. Or we get an answer that sounds good, has no basis in anything but imagination, and ends up inspiring us do things that make Loki deteriorate instead of improving. And SHIELD didn't sign him up as anything."

"Except as a potential occasional consultant," Phil corrected. "At his insistence that he couldn't swear he'd be available to do more, or on quick notice. No sign of him during the invasion, for one thing, despite living within three miles and there was no record he'd traveled anywhere that entire week."

"The charlatan said he wouldn't be available?" Tony asked.

"Said he had 'larger responsibilities' that took precedence and so could promise nothing. And yes, we asked to what and were basically told the universe, so... The official word was that we shouldn't press him about it. Higher than Fury."

"Hippie charlatan, then. Always wondered about his taste in clothes."

"Tony..."

"Well, it's _true_ , Pepper. The man has no fashion sense. And he's one of those fools who claims the title 'doctor' with no evidence of it. Bad enough when someone uses an honorary doctorate to do it, but I've seen no evidence he even has one of those. Dr. Banner, please back me up."

"If he doesn't have it, he shouldn't use it," Bruce confirmed. "I felt odd enough doing medical work after I gave up explaining that my doctorate wasn't that sort but that I knew enough to muddle. At least your honoraries were for things that would have earned proper doctorates if you'd done the work within a university setting."

Tony's face lit up and Phil really had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. "Really? You think so?"

"We've been over this before," Pepper said with a smile. "And doesn't MIT keep calling you Dr. Stark whenever they get you to do guest lectures on campus?"

"And they shouldn't, not when my highest degree is a _bachelor's_ from _them_..." he started explaining.

Steve coughed meaningfully. "Does anyone have any better ideas?"

Even Tony had to agree that they didn't.

Pepper stood and grabbed two plates. "I'll take the boys their food then, and ask Thor if it's all right with him since he's next of kin."

"You're eating when?" Phil asked, concerned. He knew how easy it was to lose track of your own needs in a situation like this, and her relationship with Tony meant that when she was minding him she could be sure to make herself eat at least as often as he did.

Juggling Tony and the Asgardians, there would be no single person whose self-care cycle she was sure to have as reference. Maybe Loki's, but that was no pattern to follow.

"Talk later, upstairs?" Tony asked her.

"Sure."

Natasha came in almost as soon as Pepper left. "Clint's a wreck. I'm taking our food and spending some time with him. Sorry."

"We can all eat together once Loki's stable enough here for he and Thor to join us," Bruce told her. "The dinner together idea's already fallen apart, so why be sorry about it?"

She left.

"So, what else do you have against Strange?" Phil asked as they finally started eating.

"Not right now," Tony snapped irritably. "So, Bruce, what have you been up to in the lab while I was gone? Don't tell me you worked on that project we started just before Thor asked for help without me..."

* * *

Pepper stuck her head in the door and was relieved to see that nothing beyond Loki sitting up had changed. "Hi, Thor. Hi, Loki. I brought your food."

"Thank you, Pepper," Thor told her with a nod. He looked between the plates as she set them down on a bedside table. "Is there a difference between the two?"

"None. I thought it might be welcoming for him if he was fed the same at the same time. I don't know what Tony and Phil were thinking - you should have all been eating in the van."

Thor was still grinning at her when she returned from filling two glasses with water at the attached bathroom's sink.

"He is hungry, and I not so much. He reacted before when he was going to be fed first, but we don't know what caused that." Thor brushed some of Loki's hair back with his hand. "I wish he could talk to us."

"There's something we need to ask you about," Pepper told him as he started feeding Loki. "Something that might help us with your brother."

"What is it?"

"More like who is it. Your people believe in magic, right?"

Thor nodded. "My brother is himself an innate shapeshifter, although he uses it consciously rarely and poorly. It is why he looks like me and not like the Jotun he is biologically related to. And he was a reasonably-skilled mage using technology before all this happened to him." His eyes narrowed when he looked up at her. "I have told you much of this before."

"We have people on Earth who claim to be able to do magic. A lot of the time, it's just using illusions to deceive people, but there's someone close who SHIELD thinks may be touching on the real thing. One of the things he claims to be able to do is mind-reading. Even if he's faking, he'd have to be really good at deducing things from body language and facial expressions to pull that off, and Natasha's been able to use what she knows of doing exactly that with humans to figure Loki out before, so..."

"You are asking my permission?"

"Loki can't consent, not in his state. You are the available next of kin and his caretaker. We _have_ to ask you for anything that isn't a response to an immediate threat to his life, at least until he starts expressing his own preferences."

Thor nodded, then took a bite from his own plate.

Two seconds later, all emotional hell broke loose on the bed beside him and it was all they could do together to get Loki calmed back down.

He stared at them with something Pepper could best describe as desolated confusion on his face.

"What just happened?" Thor asked, clearly struggling to keep his voice light.

"I... It looks like he thinks eating before you was wrong."

"But I forced him to."

"Thor, I think you're going to have to finish your dinner before he eats anything else. And I take back everything I said about him eating with other people - it looks like he has to be fed alone for now."

Thor nodded, sadness in his eyes.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll figure it out. Even if we can't fix it yet, if we can just figure out the rules he's trying to live by and keep from making him feel he's breaking them..."

He nodded again, face a little brighter, and started his own meal in earnest.

"Pepper?" he asked when he was nearly done and she was refilling Loki's glass.

"Yes?"

"When Jane comes, I will need someone to watch my brother, unless he is to be with us and I do not know how that would go for either of them."

"Right. He's in no state to be left alone."

"Would you?"

"I'd be honored. Why me?"

"He has no negative associations about you from before, seems to trust you, and you treat him well."

She smiled. "I'm glad you think that."

The warm feeling of knowing an alien prince, Thor-Odinson-God-Of-Thunder, trusted her with his defenseless brother stayed all night, even through the rehash of Tony's issues with 'that charlatan' when she told him Thor had agreed to the plan over her extremely delayed dinner.


	9. Chapter 9

It was shaping up to be a very good morning.

Someone, a woman he didn't recognize, had come to see the tall one. She'd been quite nice to him and had even hugged him, which had been somewhat nerve-wracking but the tall one seemed pleased so it must have been okay.

And the tall one was happy. Her arrival had clearly pleased him, to judge from the smiles and hugs and kisses.

He'd felt odd watching them.

They had been gone for quite a while now.

The nice lady with the orange-ish hair had been sitting with him ever since the tall one had left. She'd insisted on sitting with her arm around his shoulders, something that made him feel off-balance because he hadn't earned it but was also nice because it meant he knew exactly where she wanted him to be and he hadn't done anything worth her bother to punish.

She didn't even seem upset that she'd been able to trick him into eating before the tall one last night.

_The rules are different here, you fool._

He wrenched himself away from the thought, nervous for a moment that _they_ might know he'd had it.

Rules were rules were rules were rules.

As it was, it had taken quite a while to understand that he was now being asked to do for the woman who'd taken care of him before he journeyed here: be a simple, quiet companion.

It was a reasonably pleasant thing to be asked to do, and she was nice about it, and there were _very_ few ways even he could be disobedient doing it.

Even if he was technically breaking the rule of rules three times a day.

Rules were not bent. They were either tightened or loosened, depending on _**his**_ choices and how one had served _**him**_. In the case of Failures, tightened absolutely until _**he**_ chose to let _**his lady**_ have them at last. In the case of those who served _**him**_ well, loosened bit by bit until one might be able to go quite a while without being under full-control for more than a reminder of _**his**_ power now and then.

Using the volition you were granted was always a risk that way. Greater rewards became available, but greater risk of being a Failure accompanied them. Arguing for more than _**he**_ had already granted you was always a folly.

_And you, sir, are a fool who detests the touch of any yoke, save only one._

No, that was wrong! He liked it, it let him know where to be, what to do, that it was okay to sit here beside her while the nice lady read a book to herself softly and the tall one talked with his lady friend somewhere else, that he was exactly where he needed to be on the journey here... Restraints were good if you didn't know what you ought to be doing and he didn't didn't he because _they_ were silent...

* * *

It took two hours to exhaust all the happy small talk possibilities and what Thor could understand of Jane's research over a long grazing meal Pepper had called 'brunch'.

"So, you think Loki can get better?" she asked him kindly, and it reminded him so much of the night he'd explained what he knew of the wider local universe to her.

"He has already been getting better. There were slim hopes to start with," he told her frankly. "I hope none of this changes anything..."

"Oh no, it doesn't," she told him quickly. "I just know you're worrying about him, and you missed your family when we met, so... No, it doesn't matter. I just thought you'd like someone to talk to who isn't involved. Even with Mr. Stark's help, I can only stay an hour or two more."

He nodded. "Yes, that is most helpful." He smiled at her. "We think we may have found someone who may be able to help us figure out his true current situation, but we don't know if he can really do anything. He's coming this afternoon. Tony says he's surprised he could come at such short notice."

"You don't know if you're just getting your hopes up over nothing." She put a hand on his arm. "Thor, time and again I've heard stories that with brain injuries - yes, I know it's not the same but hear me out - internal quality of life isn't always the same as what everyone around the patient thinks it is. Loki didn't seem unhappy when I came in."

"He has no language, he constantly looks to others for guidance about the simplest things, he cannot feed himself, he barely accepts _water_..."

"And he has a brother who is making sure he eats and drinks, that the people around him treat him kindly, and that he has reassurance when he frets. That's a pretty comfortable world to live in, if you don't remember being more capable of providing those things for yourself."

"The man he was would _hate_ living like this."

"Thor, the man Loki was doesn't exist anymore. Even if he has every breakthrough he can, from what you've told me your father had to do to save his life, he can't be that man anymore. He's been through too much. All you can do is hope the changes are good ones and that he can stay happy."

"And that his enemies do not return."

She nodded. "That was terrifying. Well, we were so caught up in an experiment that at least I didn't watch it on television as it happened the way Ms. Potts did." She shivered and looked away. "I... I don't ever want to watch you in that kind of danger again."

He smiled at her, reached out, and lifted her chin gently until she looked back up at him. "I can do nothing to stop that. Even if I left the Avengers behind me here and never visited Earth again, I am the eldest and only-born heir of the Allfather, the only one of his sons capable of taking his place now. My responsibilities to my own people will always keep me in and out of danger. If that is a problem..."

"Of course it's a problem." She sighed. "But it's the same problem Ms. Potts has, and that your mother probably has, and that everyone who's cared about a warrior likely always has, okay?"

He nodded. "I understand. Among us, if someone dies in battle - please do not fret, I have a point to make - it is not lamented. The life he led is celebrated and recounted in a grand feast, and there is mourning that there will not be more of it, but no lamentations. Unless there is a relationship, and the newer the louder she and her lady friends may weep."

"Because the older the relationship, the more time they had to be together."

He nodded. "Just so. My parents have been together for so long, and their children grown, that she would be expected to do little active mourning. She would go into seclusion for certain for a time, but public weeping would be the same as for any other Asgardian." It was the strangest thing, contemplating the death of the Allfather, but he knew it must happen someday. "But for something younger - the flirting one of my friends has been doing with a certain lady of the court for so long he need soon announce his intentions to her father or wear out his welcome - that would be mourned loudly and her distress recognized, consoled."

She nodded. "You're saying you know what I'm talking about."

"Yes. Another thing your people and mine seem to have in common, under all the differences between us."

She seemed to think for a moment. "I have an hour left. Pull your chair over here and tell me about the brother you _had_."

It took nearly every bit of the hour, and in the end Thor felt much more satisfied with the situation, if more mournful.

And that felt okay with him now, because while it was nothing like a relationship with a woman - which Loki had never had to begin with, ever, and now Thor did have to wonder at the many ways his Jotun blood might have affected his romantic life, both in who he'd be attracted to and in terms of which Asgardian fathers might have knowingly warned their daughters away - they were still brothers who fought side by side (and with each other, but that was being brothers and being brothers was beyond describing with words) and who had that taken away just as they reached the full stride of responsible adulthood, for Loki would _never_ be fit for battle again even with his tricks.

Even if he got his skill with tricks back, for there was no evidence Thor had that he had retained that aspect of himself.

"Oh, I need to get going," Jane finally told him after a glance at her watch.

"All right. I will have to go home when Father enters the Odinsleep, but that will be for a short time and I should have warning."

"And other than that, I know where to find you?" she said with a grin.

He matched it as he nodded.

She hugged him once they had stood. "I'll make sure to let you know the next time I'm nearby. And hopefully Loki will be doing better by then."

After Jane left, he relieved Pepper of her 'Loki-sitting duties' as she put it. And with his arm wrapped around his brother, making him eat, Thor could almost believe Jane's words that this was all right for Loki.

He had Loki cleaned up and guided to and back from the bathroom by the time Steve arrived to announce that Dr. Strange was on his way.


	10. Chapter 10

Dr. Strange showed up wearing a perfectly normal suit, or at least it would have been perfectly normal if the jacket had not been blindingly red with the collar turned up. The only other thing abnormal about him was the white hair in matching stripes at his temples, and that was only abnormal because the rest of his hair was black and he didn't seem old enough for his hair to be turning gray.

Pepper knew from experiments in college that hair bleaching and dyeing was not _that_ exact, not without more effort than it was worth.

Tony, Phil, Thor, and Pepper formed the greeting crew while Bruce made sure whatever he and Tony were currently fiddling with in their current lab of choice didn't destroy the tower. Natasha and Steve were keeping an eye on Loki, and Clint was somewhere above them watching out for danger.

"You own normal clothes."

"Yes, Mr. Stark. I do own 'normal clothes'. As you so ungracefully call them."

Pepper hid her smirk behind her arm, pretending to scratch her shoulder.

She did love him, but sometimes it was good to see Tony taken on by someone not entirely unlike him in personality.

"I find that in nearly all cases of mental upset, no matter the cause, making the world act predictably helps with anxiety."

"Do you think you can help?" Thor asked.

"That depends."

"Already trying to find a way to cover up not being able to do anything?" Tony jabbed.

"Mr. Stark, there are a great many variables when dealing with minds. There may not be a way to help Loki beyond letting him heal himself unbothered."

Absolute silence.

"We..." Phil started.

"We never told you their names. Either of them." Tony looked like the world had just been ripped from under him and Pepper walked over to out a hand on his shoulder.

Dr. Strange shrugged. "The Sorceress Supreme of Asgard is a colleague. She warned me you two princes were in Midgard and why as a professional courtesy. When SHIELD contacted me it was easy to connect the dots."

"Then you know where..."

"Where he comes from? Yes, Thor. And I know enough of the real history of the planet to understand what that means. To be blunt, I don't care. He's hurt and on _my_ world."

Tony was staring blankly into space. "Tony?" Pepper asked.

He shook his head to clear it. "You could have just overheard someone in the background at SHIELD discussing them."

Dr. Strange rolled his eyes. "What proof will it take?"

"What?"

"What proof will it take for you to admit things you would consider magic exist, Mr. Stark? Levitating an object I cannot possibly have prepped beforehand? Using astral projection to tell you what you have in your personal safe? What?"

"A way for all it to fit in with the laws of the universe." His voice was vibranium.

"Your quantum mechanics already nears this in many cases, if Jane has told me right," Thor interjected.

"Can we let you two finish growling at each other inside?" Phil finally asked after a three minute glare-off.

* * *

It would have almost been funny watching Tony and Dr. Strange if Phil hadn't known just how high the stakes were and how dangerous making Dr. Strange avoid future SHIELD contact might be if he really was capable.

If nothing else, the story about inter-realm communication was plausible. He'd made the call himself from a sound-proofed room, and he _knew_ he had never mentioned names.

"Tony, I have told you before, for my people magic and science are the same."

He shook is head. "No. Clarke's rule. Advanced science looks like magic. That doesn't make it so."

"You're right," Dr. Strange offered. "Advanced science is not magic. Advanced science along certain investigatory pathways can be, once it starts playing with how reality manifests itself."

"Fine then, where's _your_ tech? Thor said his brother used to be a technological mage, so where's your physical equipment."

"In practice he is," Thor corrected with a raised finger and a fast step backward when they both turned to look at him. "But his shapeshifting is innate. He changed his appearance at a handful of hours old when our father picked him up for the first time and treated him kindly. He had not even the roughest blanket then, much less advanced technology."

Tony stared at him. "You've seen him change himself?"

"There was one bad incident when he tried to cover up a scrape instead of seek the Healing Room when we were children. Mother made him promise not to try that again. He has no great skill at it and technology is more useful for him."

"But you've seen him do it? With no tech."

Thor nodded.

Tony's face looked like he'd just been smacked across the back of the head.

"Mr. Stark, there are beings who naturally access what others need technology for, and in some cases only lifelong natural capacity can make something possible. Loki appears to be one of these, and Sorcerers Supreme always have some innate capacity with magic."

"Well, Mr. Strange, I'll believe it when I see evidence of it."

" _Dr._ Strange," he grated.

"There's no one on the planet who hands out PhDs or the equivalent for magic, sorcery, or any other term for the same," Tony bit out.

"No, but they do give MDs in neurology!" came the retort.

Silence.

"Then how did you end up doing magic for a living?" Pepper asked respectfully a minute later, saving Phil from having to figure out a way to restart everything himself.

Dr. Strange quietly told them, "I was a brain surgeon," and held up a hand.

A very shaking hand.

Tony _flinched_.

"Car accident. Nerve damage. Even magic can only suppress the symptoms and that not for long at a time. I had to either find a cure or find something else to do with my life." He gave a great big obviously forced grin. "Fortunately for me, magic doesn't usually require fine motor control."

After a long moment, Tony nodded. "But I don't have to like it."

Dr. Strange's smile turned genuine. "Of course you don't. And I didn't believe it could be real either, at first. Now, where's Loki? I've never met a Jotun before."

They started walking from the lobby to the elevators. "They don't have a Sorcerer Supreme?" Thor asked.

"Not that I've heard of. Some species have innate capabilities more often or more strongly than others, and Jotunheim's ecology appears rather ungifted in terms of magical capabilities and influences as far as I've ever heard, at least beyond thermal magics. I was quite surprised to hear he can shapeshift - it's not something I would have expected from one of their people." He stepped into the elevator and waited until they were in motion before he spoke again. "Now, what should I expect from him today?"

"He's been calm, had a good morning sitting with me, and he still shows no signs of language comprehension," Pepper reported. "He seems nervous but curious if that makes any sense."

"Given he's in an unfamiliar place where people he may remember harming him are treating him kindly, with no way to ask questions? I'd say that's normal."

* * *

Dr. Strange sat in a chair facing Loki's softer armchair seat.

"Well, he seems to trust me being here." His voice was almost a sing-song, the sort used with skittish colts.

Thor nodded in agreement. But then, Loki seemed very trusting of strangers here on Midgard, at least after the first few seconds.

"Thor, has he ever witnessed or been subject to any form of consensual mindreading on Asgard?"

"No. Not that I know of. Theory, perhaps. Why?"

"Because if he had, it'd be easier for me to ask permission for this." Dr. Strange held out a hand and gently moved to cup Loki's cheek with it.

Loki's eyes darted to his.

"See, I'm not going to hurt you." He rubbed Loki's face a little with his thumb. "It's okay. I just need to see what's been done to you."

He raised his other hand, and the change in Loki was immediate. It seemed to Thor that he wanted to get away, but was as afraid of doing so as he was of staying.

Thor put a hand on his back.

"Good idea." Dr. Strange's voice was still the same sing-song. "That settles it, they definitely forced him to accept mind contact. Didn't they?"

Loki just stared at his other hand, eyes wide.

Natasha and Steve both seemed very, very troubled and Thor wished he understood why.

"Loki, it's going to be all right. I just need a little look. It's to help you, I swear it."

Loki glanced up at Thor, and Thor couldn't help but give a little nod. "It's all right, Brother," he told him softly.

The resistance lessened.

"Oh now that's a bad sign," Dr. Strange muttered lightly under his breath.

"Why?" Tony asked.

No answer.

Dr. Strange finally got his other hand in place. "Now see, this isn't so bad, is it? Hmm?"

Loki finally seemed to relax a bit.

"Now can I please have just a little look? Just for a moment?"

Loki finally gave a very tiny clearly frightened nod and closed his eyes.

It only took a few seconds before Dr. Strange started talking.

"He's a mess. He thinks in words, but doesn't understand spoken language and his own speech creation capacity isn't coming back anytime soon, is it, Loki?"

If Thor hadn't needed to focus on his brother's need for reassurance, he'd have thrown something.

"He's doing a relatively good job piecing himself back together, given the damage. He's close to a few breakthroughs. And anything I do now could disrupt those, so I'm just going to leave you be now, okay, Loki? But, oh..."

"What?" most of them asked nearly as one.

"Damn bastards," he said in that same sing-song. "No one should ever... May she take them the hard way."

"What have they done to him?" Thor asked.

"Shapeshifting lock, out of phase of both his natural form and his chosen one. He doesn't understand it's there, so it's just making the world seem even more out of balance."

"Can you remove it?" Natasha asked with concern.

"Ethically, I can't leave it there." He seemed to turn deeply inward, and Thor realized he _had_ only been doing the lightest possible inspection of Loki's mind. "Got it," he announced a moment later. He lowered his hands from Loki's face.

Loki looked at him warily.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Dr. Strange asked him.

Loki frowned, looked serious for a moment, and then the angles of his face seemed to shift.

And he suddenly looked a lot more like his old self had in little ways Thor had not noticed were missing.

_I thought him merely ill. I knew locking a shapeshifter was possible, but forcing him into an unfavored form beforehand..._

And then Loki's back was no longer under his hand and the human sorcerer was rocked back in his chair with his arms full of overly happy undersize Jotun.

The chair tipped over, and Loki seemed suddenly terrified, but Dr. Strange was laughing and a moment later the idea that the situation was humorous seemed to catch in Loki's mind.

The human didn't even bother with getting up until he'd patted Loki's back and told him, "Now see, isn't that better?"

Loki insisted on being the one to set the chair upright again.

"Now, if I can talk to some of you out of his earshot?" Dr. Strange asked in the same light tones.

_Of course, keeping his voice pleasant for Loki isn't something he can keep up forever,_ Thor thought.

They left Phil and Steve with Loki. Tony looked completely gobsmacked and Pepper looked as though she was all that was keeping him upright, but he came with them anyway.

Dr. Strange's demeanor changed completely once they had left the room and gotten a door between them and Loki. By the time they had gotten a soundproof distance away, he looked absolutely livid.

_As he should be, given the damage to Loki._

But then Dr. Strange turned towards him.

"Thor Odin's son, what in the name of The One Above All have you done to your little brother!?"


	11. Chapter 11

Thor stepped back in surprise, then retorted, "I have done _none_ of this! I have fed him and held him and accompanied him when he must flee dangers he could not know of in his state. How dare..."

Dr. Strange didn't back down and there was fire in his eyes. "Do you know what he thinks of you, son of Odin? What the little brother you promised dear sweet Frigga you would always take care of thinks when he looks at you now?" His voice was unnaturally calm and even.

Thor did back down, and in a way that was terrifying even to Phil who had seen him completely hopeless before. He shook his head.

"He doesn't think of you as family. He doesn't have the _concept_ right now. Your parents are people he trusts to take care of him, as he remembers they always have."

Thor closed his eyes and sat down in the nearest chair. "And I?"

"He's been extensively conditioned to obey orders. On pain of torture. He's lived in a world where agony for minor errors was a basic fact of life. Grace, mercy, forgiveness - all foreign ideas that don't exist for him anymore, at least so far as the consequences of his own actions go. Even if he heals completely every place he is damaged, he will need looking after as a continually refilling bucket of paralyzing guilt over things that should never be considered wrong."

Grimaces all around.

"And I?" Thor repeated.

"They aren't giving him orders now. They _can't_ anymore, much as he's still listening for it. All he has is their rules and the fear that he could do something wrong without knowing it's wrong."

"That's sick," Tony declared.

A nod. "And he does not remember how he has failed them, that no obedience to them can now save him should they find him." Dr. Strange sat down in the chair beside Thor's. "What he does remember is that before all that, there was someone who kept telling him to 'know his place'. And that therefore, that someone must know what that place is."

Thor covered his face with a hand.

"Between you and some of the other Asgardians, people who I think may have known what he is his whole life, there was a nice firm foundation for the traditional conditioning to build on even before mind control entered into the equation."

"What can I do to help him?" Thor asked once they had all given him a chance to compose himself.

The sorcerer's answer was blunt. "Order him around that he feels he knows what he should be doing."

"No," Thor said as he finally looked up in apparent shock. "I will not mistreat him so!"

"Thor, right now leaving Loki directionless _is_ mistreating him. It worked when you were home because your mother was clearly using him as a companion and he felt too injured inside to be useful. He's wondering why you have brought him here. 'To rest and heal' is not an answer he is prepared to accept right now."

Thor finally nodded. "I understand. I will help find him something to occupy himself with."

"He can always help set up for meals," Pepper offered. "We've had to cut down who has access to the living spaces of the tower, and those are tasks he could learn through observation."

"Food is a delicate subject."

"We know," Tony told him. "Thor's been having to force him to eat."

"Thor, do you want your brother to live?"

"Of course, why would you think otherwise?" The vehemence nearly made Phil wish he'd decided to stay behind with Loki.

"Because if so, you _must_ keep forcing food and drink into him. There is no other way at the moment."

Phil raised a finger. "There are medical ways to..."

"No!" A few deep breaths. "Those concepts are tinged with fear. Holding him down and making him eat is the _kinder_ on him. Only do the other if there is no alternative at all."

Thor covered his face with a hand again. "Why?"

"He was not allowed to eat or drink without very explicit action on the part of the one controlling him. Under threat of dire consequences. He's completely repressing what happened the one time he dared break that rule, but the emotional associations are horrifying. And by the way, you _were_ feeding him the right amount to begin with. He found out how to sneak a drink in the shower and figured out you were going to feed him again soon enough to find out. In his mind, he's been punished ever since."

"And you can't do _anything_ about it?" Tony growled.

Dr. Strange glanced at him with an eyebrow raised.

Tony threw his hands up. "Hard to deny someone shapeshifting in my own home who doesn't have enough mind left to play along with elaborate deceptions, all right?"

A smirk, then seriousness again. "Loki is healing. A lot of the damage was to the parts trying to defy them, so the compliant parts are what's actively working at the moment. He is on the verge of several breakthroughs. I was not joking when I said _anything_ I do could jeopardize them. The most I could dare was removing that block, and he could never have done that on his own."

"So he's a doormat."

"For the moment, Mr. Stark. That should change with the next breakthrough. That part of his mind _knows_ his controllers aren't going to be giving him orders anymore and understands quite a lot more about what's happened to him. He's already fighting insights from it, so I don't think it will take long - relative to lifespan, so it could still take months."

A general groan.

"How will we know when he's had it?" Phil asked.

"You'll know. _That_ one should come with drastic signs and changes. The others - other than language - he may barely notice himself. I wasn't able to see what those chunks are, not without triggering memories he wouldn't be able to place with no way to calm him down or explain anything to him. And there's a chance a number of the lesser breakthroughs could cascade with the larger one, either at the same time or in short order." A shrug. "As I said, I've never looked into a Jotun mind before, but that seems common in species with similar mental structures."

"So, it should get easier within a few months," Pepper mused aloud.

"Oh no, Ms. Potts. It's going to get worse."

Silence.

"How can it get worse if he's healing?" Phil finally dared to ask.

"Because right now, he doesn't remember what he was. Right now, he considers nothing to be _demeaning,_ precisely because he believes he is so low there is no way he _can_ be demeaned. Every privilege he has is something granted by another and revocable on a whim, and in his mind this is how things ought to be. Now, imagine someone with his previous personality unable to speak and _still having to be fed by hand_. Or having the same feeling that bad things, horrible things, things no thinking being should ever have to _witness_ , are going to happen to him if he does anything wrong but having his old need to follow his own desires? Basic goals beyond simple survival and obeying? This? This is the _easy_ time."

Another general groan.

"And Thor? The horror that was your brother finding out his ancestry?"

"Yes?"

"He gets a do over. Without your parents there for him. With the potential of figuring out just why he isn't in the royal quarters in Asgard having Frigga help him with everything. I didn't poke deeply enough to see what the last time was like, but the emotional impact _will_ be worse this time."

"... he committed regicide against the Jotun last time," Thor said flatly. "Tried to destroy Jotunheim."

"Then plan the hell accordingly. Oh and there was a girl. He's been glancing at her across rooms. For several _centuries_. I think he'll understand now exactly why her father glared at someone with the rank and power of the second prince for taking an interest in so much as friendship with his little angel once he realizes the news of his ancestry got loose from someone outside the royal family."

Thor looked confused. "He never spoke a word of such to me."

"That's because he's never managed to say as much as hello to her. Again, plan the hell accordingly."

Phil saw Tony wrap an arm around Pepper's shoulders, and she leaned into him ever so slightly.

Thor nodded with grief written all over his face. "What do I do when Father has to enter the Odinsleep?"

"You hadn't already made plans for if you had to go home?"

Thor shook his head. "We were too busy trying to get Loki to safety."

"He can't go back to Asgard, Thor. Not with the way your Sorceress Supreme's been talking about what's happening there in your absences."

"Would he be safe?" Thor asked.

"Possibly. But miserable even then. What he needs is a place where it's okay to be the wreck he is now. And the angst-filled mute he's going to be soon. And whatever he ends up being once he gets language back. Where he doesn't have to renegotiate the fundamental details of relationships every time he has a breakthrough. The next one, it can't be helped, but the rest..."

"Thor, we can take care of that," Tony offered. "Don't worry about it. I'd figured you'd have to go back eventually anyway - Odin can't lose both sons and you're the only heir he's got."

Thor nodded. "All right."

Phil asked, "Can you tell anything about who did this to him?"

"They have extensive knowledge of minds, the technology to implant permanent mind control structures without leaving the sorts of traces traditional sorcery leaves, the capacity for cruelty required to fundamentally break an Asgardian prince to halter - and I do mean exactly that, Thor - and they don't match the profile of anyone I've so much as heard a legend of. I can't tell anything more from what I saw. Maybe when Loki gets better, he'll remember something." Dr. Strange stood. "Well, I'm glad I could give what help I could."

"At least we know what to expect," Pepper offered. "Before, we didn't know if he was going to get better. Not for certain."

"Yes. And that is a good thing." Dr. Strange grew stern again. "Just bear in mind, he will remember everything that has happened to him during his healing as he puts himself back together. If you take advantage of him, or let things look to him as if you have, he will act as if you had once he heals enough for it. And Thor, I'd advise you to start patching up your relationship with him _now_."

Clint walked in as they were walking out the door. "Did it work?"

"It worked," Phil confirmed.

"Great." Clint took a deep breath. "It was a lot less extensive, but they got me through that scepter..."

"You want me to make sure they didn't leave anything behind in your head."

"Right. Not that I think they did," he said defensively, "but since you're here and you know how..."

It was the simple act of a moment for Dr. Strange to cup his face much as he had Loki's, tell him to just relax for a moment, and pronounce him cleared entirely.

Clint almost slumped in relief, and Phil honestly felt like joining him.

That, at least, was unabashedly good news.


	12. Chapter 12

Thor was glad for Clint, but the bounce in the man's step made him want to break something.

When they returned, all three of the people they'd left in the room looked toward them.

"Well?" Natasha asked.

"I'm clean," Clint offered. "And that's about the only good news."

Thor deeply appreciated the concern in the two humans' eyes at that. Loki was, thankfully, oblivious.

"I wouldn't call it bad news, though." Dr. Strange walked over and gave Loki a last quick hug. "It's just going to be hard on him." He pulled away. "Is it all right if I find my own way out?"

"It's easy to get lost. I'll show you," Phil offered.

Just before they left, Dr. Strange told Thor, "Don't hesitate to try contacting me if anything unexpected happens. And get me when he regains his language comprehension skills - he's probably going to want me to talk to him about his own condition and it's not really fair for you to know and him to not at that point."

"All right, I will," Thor told him with a nod.

When the sorcerer was gone, Thor sat next to Loki again.

Natasha asked, "What's the diagnosis?"

"He doesn't remember what they did to him. He doesn't remember that he is adopted. He doesn't remember what family is. He's been tortured for eating without his captors' permission."

Natasha swore in Russian. Steve swore in English.

Loki looked back and forth between them, clearly frightened at their reaction.

"Let's go fill in Bruce," Pepper told Tony.

The others all made their own excuses until it was just Natasha, Thor, and an increasingly anxious Loki.

Thor wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "It's going to be okay, Brother," he promised Loki in an even voice he had to struggle to maintain. "You are going to get better, and while that will be distressing I will be here for you."

Loki looked at him, calming down. Thor hated the thought of what was really going on behind those bright eyes.

"And I promise to be a better brother, because you deserve one."

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him.

"Dr. Strange thinks some of our sibling rivalry made it easier for them to take control of him. I was oldest and exactly what our culture values. Loki... was not."

* * *

"So who are you?" Phil asked once they were out of earshot of everyone but JARVIS.

"Dr. Stephen Vincent Strange, MD." He smirked.

"Nice try. SHIELD did research. The only man by that name with that degree profile was born back in the thirties. There's no way you're in your eighties."

"I have access to magic, Agent Coulson."

"But a universal in the old stories is that defying age is ethically questionable at best or requires a deal with Death at worst. And you have better ethics than that."

"I shall take your assessment as a compliment, but I would like to point something out to you: a deal with Death is only an ethical negative if one sees Death as evil."

Phil stopped walking and stared at him. "You have a deal with Death."

"More of a professional courtesy. She sees value in keeping me around, in return I am assured that she will not come to take me over natural causes, including age. It's balanced out by an increased risk of being killed by other means." He shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised if your recent survival wasn't a case of her refusing to take you yet, given your importance in this delicate stage of our planetary defensive strategy. Certainly wouldn't be the first time she's done that."

"How the hell do you know about that?"

"Because I'm the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth and damn well cared to find out what happened in my absence when I got back from the off-realm business I was dealing with at the time of the attack. I was gone and incommunicado before Loki arrived. And yes, the thought my movements were being observed to take advantage of an opening has crossed my mind in disturbing ways. Several times in the past week alone."

" _You're_ our Sorcerer Supreme."

A nod. "Someone has to do it. That's why I couldn't swear anything to SHIELD - any day, threats you have no way of perceiving exist might call me elsewhere or one of my colleagues might need help dealing with a threat that could spread here. Believe me, I'll be alerting as many as I have good relationships with to the profile of Loki's captors. This... this does not sound like a threat to _a_ world."

They started walking again, but a moment later Phil had to stop in shock again. " _She?_ "

"It's a preferred form when dealing with most bipedal humanoids. Helps make everyone more comfortable. Every once in a while someone even falls in love with her."

Phil shook his head fast, trying to clear it.

The smirk was back again. "Don't worry, I'm not one of them. It generally leads to stupid risks in battle and a quick but bloody end. The rest just mope around with fond thoughts of when normal events will bring them to her."

Phil stared at him.

"She isn't malicious, Agent. She sees her role as reducing the amount of suffering in the universe, as I understand it. And if she thinks letting someone survive a near-death experience will accomplish that, sometimes she'll allow it." Dr. Strange gave him a quirky smile. "Consider your survival a compliment."

* * *

"So, what breed are the cats?" Bruce joked as Tony followed Pepper into their lab.

"He's completely noverbal, both comprehending and producing. He doesn't recall much of what happened to him. He doesn't remember what a brother is, much less that Thor is his. And magic is real. I'm not kidding - Loki shapeshifted himself up there."

Bruce just kept poking at their current experiment.

"You aren't surprised?" Pepper asked.

"Considering we still have no clue where all the extra mass comes from when the other guy shows up or where it goes when he leaves?"

Tony stared at him.

After ten seconds of trying to jumpstart his brain again, Pepper cracked up laughing behind him and excused herself from the room.

"Don't tell me you never wondered."

"Well, considering what it would take to find out? I mean, do we even know what he weighs?"

"No." Bruce turned away and adjusted something. "He trusts you enough that he might be willing to let you find out."

"No. Not going to happen." Tony shook his head. "He's got enough people wanting to experiment on him as it is. Better if he feels safe in my labs."

Bruce looked over his shoulder and smiled at him. "Thanks. So, how bad was it when we were fighting him?"

"The phrase 'broken to halter' was used."

"Damn." Bruce looked away again.

"He's been tortured for eating."

Bruce turned back around to face him. "Eating?"

"Eating. Apparently whoever was his handler had to give him permission. Permission I'm presuming we can't replicate."

"Is there any hope at all for him, or do we need to plan for him to always be like this?"

"Dr. Strange - yes, he actually has an MD - thinks he'll start remembering in the next few months, with language coming last. His personality should shift back with the next breakthrough."

Bruce kept tinkering. "So he really didn't have a choice about being here then, did he?"

"It's unlikely."

Silence.

"We had to stop him. For his good as well as the planet's. He had to be incapacitated and the other guy made sure he was only incapacitated."

"Right." He lightened up. "So, when are you going to tell me why you really need a source of elemental carbon that is suitable for further processing?"

"I'd prefer not to use blood diamonds, even by accident, in Stark Industries products and processes."

"And you're rich enough to be able to use lab-made to specifications. If you can get the crystal size up and the purity where you want it."

"Exactly."

"And there isn't a secondary purpose?"

"A lot of industrial processes use carbon."

"Which is what you told me to start with." Bruce gave him a knowing look. "2 carat, brilliant cut, set in 14 carat gold for the durability? Mean anything to you?"

_Considering that's too large for her hand, there are other cuts I know she goes 'ooh' over, and why use gold when you have access to titanium and will need a band set to match in a metal that is lab-safe and resistant to damage should she by any chance say yes?_ "Nope, doesn't mean anything to me."

"Yeah, right," Bruce coughed under his breath with a smile.

They had been working on the project since before Thor had contacted them, officially as a 'can we make industrially-useful carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide?' project but mainly as an excuse to fool around in the lab with basic chemical engineering that touched on both their specialties - Bruce knew the reactions, since biochemistry had been a major component of his solo work, and Tony knew all about building the required apparatus to make them possible. After his little promise to Peggy to listen to whatever he'd regretted during his brushes with death, it had come to mean a bit more.

A lot more.

Because the thing he'd regretted was knowing he'd be leaving Pepper behind and legally vulnerable to having anything he willed to her taken away by someone with a more expensive lawyer. And if it was sudden, there would be no chance to name her CEO as he had before or personally transfer funds and property to her through normal means.

Which meant she needed a legal status that reflected her importance to him. One that couldn't be invalidated once he did finally pass away no matter what killed him.

And in New York City, there was only one way to do that for sure.

* * *

He had been anxious about the visit by the strange man in the red coat, mainly because he could remember touches and mental brushes similar to his being uncomfortable in the past, but he'd obeyed because the tall one had told him to.

It hadn't been bad, and the strange man had made whatever felt _off_ about his body feel okay.

And what happened after... he'd have submitted to it with no prompting, if it were his place to make such a decision and it wasn't, had he known what was going to happen next.

He'd gotten worried when the tall man had gotten so serious Maybe he was going to be rejected, now that they knew how useless he was. That wasn't something worthy of being treated as Failure, but the usual results weren't pleasant either.

But no.

The nice lady with the orange-ish hair had shown him how to set out the plates and utensils for dinner, and he managed so well on his first try that she praised him for the job he'd done.

And then they let him sit with them for the meal and the tall one didn't even try to trick him beyond the obvious rule-breaking that couldn't be helped.

They'd even waited to leave the table until after the tall one had finished feeding him.

And they hadn't rushed him.

The tall one hadn't even _let_ him rush.

And then when it was time to get ready to sleep, the tall one had shown him how to adjust the water for washing and didn't punish him when he stayed for what he was sure must be too long in the cold spray.

Warm sheets, the same place he'd slept last night. He and the tall one shared a room, he in the smaller bed as was appropriate and right. He'd thought last night that maybe it was just because he'd been good on the journey, but now it looked like a permanent arrangement.

And everything made a kind of sense now.

They'd been waiting until the strange man could tell them what he was capable of before really ordering him to do anything. And of course he wouldn't be allowed privileges until he was doing something - it was proper for them to be taken for no reason, but nearly unthinkable for them to be given for no reason.

He wished _they_ would make contact again, but this... this wasn't a bad place to be waiting until _they_ did.

He lay awake thinking of it until long after the tall one fell asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

Thor had hoped the promised breakthrough would happen before he needed to leave in preparation for the Odinsleep, but as the next few weeks passed it became less and less likely.

(Then again, Dr. Strange's prediction meant it could easily happen _after_ he got back - no great help in Loki's care, but maybe Thor would be there to help him when the time came.)

Which meant having to get a still-amnesiac Loki prepared for his extended absence, which could easily be a week or more depending on when their father requested him and how long he needed to stay afterward.

Between helping with the set-up for meals, keeping Pepper company in the evenings as she read out loud on the off-chance language exposure might help trigger something, and carrying inert parts and supplies down to the ever more secretive Lab Of Secrets (as the sign Tony and Bruce made for the door with a piece of scrap metal and an optical etching tool named an 'industrial laser' by the Midgardians called it), by the time the message came from Asgard requesting Thor's arrival in a few days Loki seemed to find nothing odd with him disappearing for an entire day with Jane.

Merely as a test, of course, and for his own good on top of that, but the upstate property did have some fine spots for private picnics. And it made a good trial to see if Loki could even tolerate someone else feeding him.

Luckily for everyone, he could. He had his favorites and preferred Thor to anyone, but he certainly was not going to starve or die of thirst in Thor's absence.

Jane spent her fair share of time with Loki on some of her visits, too. She spent hours reading basic Midgardian science texts to him because according to her _those_ were more likely to be of interest to him than the novels Pepper preferred. Something about depending on Earth cultural norms. Thor didn't quite understand it, but he trusted her judgment.

It was more likely a fellow mind of science would understand what would help Loki regain that part of himself, after all.

Bruce started doing the same once the friendship overtures he made every time Loki ran something to the lab 'took' and Loki began trusting him at a closer distance than 'the far side of the dinner table'.

Thor stayed as long as he could. They had managed to make a good landing and pick-up site for the Bifrost out of a clearing in the upstate property with Jane's help in selecting it, so he could leave the tower within hours of Heimdall's planned pick-up time.

The day he got the word via a letter dropped when he and Jane were picnicking, he and Steve switched rooms for the night. Loki was confused, but accepted it well enough that Thor thought he could handle being watched over by someone else for a while.

And besides, there was no other option.

* * *

Frigga was waiting on Thor when he arrived.

She came forward and hugged him the first moment it was safe. "Oh, I missed you."

"I missed you too." It was the longest he had ever been away from her, he realized, and every day suddenly weighed on him. "And Father. And everybody, really."

She held him at arm's length. "And Loki?"

"He is... doing better. He doesn't remember any more than he did, but he is doing better. And a human sorcerer of no little skill with minds claims he is close to a breakthrough - I was hoping it would occur before I had to leave, but that was not to be."

"But he is happy?"

"I would say yes."

"Good." She led him outside to where two horses were waiting after he nodded acknowledgment to Heimdall. "It's good to have at least one of you home, even if it is only for a little while. It's almost hard to believe it's been so long. Loki's birthday is nearly here again, and it seemed so far away when you two left."

They mounted and set off.

"Mother, what of the plotting against him?" Thor finally asked.

"A few of your father's warriors from the war knew. They had been sworn to secrecy, but they acted sometimes based on what they knew."

_A girl Loki liked, and her father staring him away from her despite his rank as prince._ The realization that either he had known or someone else had whispered to him that there was something 'off' about Loki burned through Thor.

But then, of course, when the revelation came she might have rejected him even if she had returned interest in him.

"Apparently the royal house of Asgard spending so much time caring for someone who was still to them a Jotun runt meant to... well, it set those most prejudiced against him off. They whispered the news in the ears of those most likely to be offended, and the secret was out."

"Damn it. Does Father have it under control?"

"Mainly. But Heimdall cannot read minds. At this point, when he cannot comprehend the danger..."

"It's not safe for Loki."

"No."

"I presume those caught have had their titles and possessions stripped, as is the law?"

"Indeed, but in some cases handed directly to the children who opposed their actions. In recognition of loyalty. With clear reminders that it was done out of your father's sense of justice, and need not be repeated in the future."

"Easy to be loyal when you know the alternative brings you down with the disloyal," Thor bit out.

"This was different. One turned in her parents, who we believe were the start of this mess. Another..." she sighed. "Sif needs your support more than ever before."

"Sif's parents?" Thor asked, confused. "I know her father believed her worthless in her womanhood, but..."

"Just so. She'd expressed her condemnation of everything in private to us shortly after you left with Loki, and a week later the guards found a meeting and..."

"Imprisoned?"

"Dead. Resisting arrest. Both of them."

"What?" he said with almost no voice behind it.

This was unthinkable, how could all this have happened, he hadn't even been gone for three Earth months!

* * *

Sif was waiting on them when they finally reached the stables.

Thor practically fell off the horse, he was so out of practice and desperate to get down. "Sif..."

"Prince Thor."

"Oh don't start that," he begged as he hugged her. "I... I'm so sorry..."

"Don't you start that yourself," she told him. "Their choice to be disloyal, their choice to defy the guard."

She was shaking in his arms anyway, and still was when she pushed away lightly enough for him to take the hint and let her go.

"How is Loki?"

"Better than he was when we left. I think having more people around him helped."

"I'm sorry I didn't try to help but... well, Father ordering me to 'leave royal business be for once' makes a lot more sense now, doesn't it?"

He had to agree.

"Shall I leave you two to catch up in private?" Frigga offered.

"No, Mother. Given everything... I think the privacy of the royal quarters would be better for this. Fewer potential unfriendly ears." A thought struck him. "The Three..."

"Hogun saw a Jotun grab Loki without burning him. According to the Allfather that appears to have been what made Loki suspect something was wr... _different_ about him."

_She is finally learning tact_ , Thor realized with no small amount of surprise.

"According to what all three of them told me after they told your parents, Hogun let them know after Loki's memorial feast, when we thought he'd must have died after going over the Bifrost. They kept secret about knowing it until the word got out and they felt the need to let the Allfather know they weren't involved."

"As far as I know, that's correct," Frigga confirmed. "Now come, let's get you two someplace you can talk."

* * *

Thor felt distinctly uncomfortable at the way Sif shivered when he finished describing Loki's current condition. "I..." She shook her head. "For someone like Loki to be in such a state..."

"The sorcerer says that for the moment he remembers little. This is the calm before he understands what he has lost and remembers the dignity he once knew."

"Dignity." She snorted. "I hope he remembers Volstagg's comment about his silver tongue turning to lead last of all."

"I hope he remembers it not at all, if that be an option."

An uncomfortable silence.

"I know about her. You're seeing her again, aren't you?"

"Yes." He felt no shame in the answer. There had been an understanding of sorts that he and Sif might one day be more than just friends, but nothing that would have been binding on any man, much less the firstborn prince.

"I'm having to do a lot of thinking now," she told him. "About everything they told me, about the things I learned from them that I hadn't bothered defying..."

"I understand. It would be a shock for anyone."

"Thor, what I'm saying is, I need time to find out who Lady Sif who stands without her father judging her is. A _lot_ of time. And I really want to know who that person my father wasn't letting me be is before I even think of a formal courtship with anyone."

Aching in his brain. As if Loki's condition hadn't changed his life enough. "You're dissolving the understanding between us."

"No. Not dissolving. Pausing." She reached for his hand. "Thor, I need my friends to be my friends now. All right? And since it's going to take a Midgardian lifetime or more for me to sort myself out now, you might as well be free of entanglements while you wait. I may not even be ready until decades after she's gone."

He blinked at her. "Sif..."

"Thor, it's really all right. And besides, she's a scientist. If she gets you interested in such things beyond what's required for simple utility, it'll be good for the realm. Deities know Loki's never had much luck with it." She flinched. "Thor, I..."

"It's all right. She's been reading science books to Loki when she visits. Just in case it might help him recover his language skills."

Sif thought for a moment. "You said he's going to regain memories and abilities in chunks and that you're both staying in the home of a human scientist-inventor, complete with his personal labs close at hand."

"Yes. Your point?"

"He's going to be all kinds of dangerous depending on what he remembers when."

"That has been discussed..." Thor told her with a laugh at the thought of the look on Tony's face when he'd realized he needed to secure his labs in his own home after they let Loki know where they were so he could run safe errands.

It was good to be home, even if only for this little while.


	14. Chapter 14

They ate in private as a family that night, as they had sometimes found occasion to do in the past.

Thor's welcome home feast would be tomorrow night, after he'd been given a chance to rest a bit. Not from the traveling - the Bifrost made that nearly effortless - but from the weeks of stress of constantly looking after Loki.

Even when he'd taken a day to be with Jane, they had needed to be constantly reachable in case anything changed.

He was sure Heimdall would tell them if there was an urgent need for his return to Midgard, but the moment to moment wondering was off his shoulders.

For everything but the most dire situations, the humans ought to be able to handle Loki's care.

"So, how does Loki fare? In your estimation," Odin asked him.

"He's certainly better than he was. Food is still an issue, and water, but apart from that problem he's doing much better. He doesn't understand language yet, but we've had him doing odd errands within the building so he can feel useful. According to the human sorcerer Dr. Strange, that's a very important thing to him."

"A prince of Asgard, needing to run objects from room to room as a courier to feel useful." Odin rubbed his temples.

"It will stop immediately when he comes back to himself enough to object to it," Thor said quickly.

"I was not saying it was a bad idea, my son. But for Loki to have been brought so low as to feel he need do such things..."

"It is a shameful thing his enemies have done to him," Frigga added.

Thor decided not to mention anything about what had led Loki to this state. At least not with their mother present.

The look on her face right now was bad enough.

"He will have a memory breakthrough soon. Dr. Strange isn't sure how far it will go, but he claims even the smallest possible one will bring Loki back to much of who his former self was, at least in personality..."

"Good," Frigga said with a sigh.

"... but with all the behavioral and emotional issues he has now still in place." Thor cringed in anticipation of the change on his mother's face, and his prediction was entirely correct. "But he'll be in a psychological place where he can start working through them. Right now, he doesn't have the information to understand what's happened to him, and until he can comprehend speech..."

"... there's no way to give him that information," Odin completed with his eyes closed.

Thor had to agree.

"How little does he know?" Frigga asked.

"Mother, please..."

"Thor, we need to know. Heimdall cannot see within minds, only what the owners of those minds do."

Thor had to obey his father, even if he hadn't used his rank as Allfather when making the request. "According to the sorcerer, Loki doesn't have a concept of what 'family' is right now."

Both of them stared at him in horror.

"He was trusting us..." Frigga breathed.

"He remembers that we treat him well. But there isn't an understanding of _why_. Just that we're safe, and that we are likely to be predictable toward him."

"The reasoning of a very young child who doesn't know very much yet," Odin said grimly.

"As near as we can tell, he vaguely remembers that the human Avengers hurt him at some time in the past, but he trusted me trusting them. Since they haven't done anything else he's found objectionable, he's been all right alone with them for a while. I didn't like leaving him before he understands what's happened to him, but there's no way around it."

"No, there isn't. And I'd rather get this out of the way before he needs us later on." Odin leaned back a bit. "Are there any predictions for when he might remember where he came from?"

"None. It isn't part of the group of memories Dr. Strange thought he'd be getting back next, but it might cascade from them. Or at least that's the term he used."

"One set of memories can provide the keys to another, Thor," Frigga told him kindly. "A memory of fighting beside you could trigger a memory of that dreadful trip to Jotunheim, and that could remind him of everything else that happened that day."

"Or he could remember how he killed Laufey, and only later fill in why he took that action, or even who Laufey was to him." Odin's voice was as grim as it had ever been. "Chances are your brother may well feel a great deal of guilt over what he did before all this happened to him."

Thor nodded. "I understand. I... from what I have been told, I... there were things I did not know I was doing to him, before. Being the oldest. Being the one our people viewed as an acceptable prince. I... I did not realize what was happening, what I was doing to him, and to him..."

"To him, everything was as it had always been. No reason to complain," Odin finished the thought.

"I'm trying to fix it, but he doesn't understand enough..."

"He'll understand you're treating him well," Frigga assured him. "And he'll remember these days later on."

"He thinks the way I treated him before is all he deserves. Most of what he can recall now is abuse."

His mother dropped her fork and raised her hand to her mouth.

_There goes dinner._

* * *

The tall one hadn't come back.

They were settling in for the night and he hadn't come back.

He always came back. Always always always. First in the afternoons in the other place, when the woman had taken care of him, and then the nights here. He'd spent the night in another room last night, but still nearby.

But tonight... he hadn't come back.

It made him nervous.

The big man, the one who looked out for the woman who had traveled with them and kept an eye out for him, was spending the night in the tall one's bed.

Or was it really the tall one's bed at all? He'd been spending more and more time away lately. Maybe it was all an elaborate transition from one set of minders to another.

It wasn't his place to have an opinion, but he hoped that wasn't what had happened. He'd prefer the tall one came back.

But he'd just have to take what he was given, as was right.

He settled into bed uneasily and stared into the dark for a long time, wondering why it mattered so much that the tall one was gone.

He drifted off before the big man's breathing showed signs of sleep.

* * *

Thor wished he could get news from Midgard as he settled in for the evening in a bedroom he had not been in for weeks, but he knew if he started asking Heimdall now, he would never stop asking.

And no matter what happened, he could not return until after his father had woken from the Odinsleep. Not unless it was a matter of the safety of the realm, and Heimdall would send for him personally if that were the case.

No, he'd just have to get used to it.

_I will not know how Loki has fared until I return and see him myself._

"Thor?" his mother called from the doorway.

It was going to take time to get used to the royal quarter's use of guards and angled hallways in place of the doors the Midgardians used everywhere again.

Home had never felt so foreign before.

"Yes, Mother?"

She walked in with an armful of children's books. "Your father and I had set these aside when your brother finished outgrowing them. In case either of you ever needed them for your own babes someday. I was wondering if maybe they could help Loki now, as stories he might remember without having to read them. Something you could read out loud to him, as a way to start language skills recovery."

Thor took them from her. "That... that could work."

"Spend some time looking through them here. I'm not sure all of them would be things he would remember. You boys would know each other better that way."

Thor put the books down and hugged her. "Brothers who always have each other are still no replacement for their mother," he told her.

"But he doesn't _know_ that I'm his... I told him, I told him when he found out about his adoption that we were his family, that he should _know_ that. And he doesn't even..." 

She started crying, and Thor helped her sit down without taking an arm from her shoulders for an instant.

"Mother, even when he was _trying_ to distance himself from me and from father, even in the depths of their control or the madness he fell into here... I've never heard him speak a word trying to disclaim you. And he was claiming Father until he fell from the Bifrost. Hanging on, he claimed him. Deities above, he only called himself a son of Odin to Laufey's face, and if he was ever willingly going to reject you he'd have done it then."

She calmed and nodded, dabbing at her eyes.

"When he remembers, he will claim you again, Mother. And it is only the word he has forgotten, only the obligation you feel to him. You and Father were the first two beings in the world he ever had reason to trust, and there is no sign he ever forgot that first thing he ever knew."

That set her bawling again and Thor simply held her through it.

She'd tried so hard not to cry in front of Loki, since he wouldn't understand and making him fret would only make her feel worse, but now...

Now was the time for letting her take comfort in the parts of her family that were still whole.

He fell asleep, hours later, still wondering how Loki was doing.

* * *

Warm arms around him, he wanted to be put down, the swaying was too much for him, a voice was singing something over and over again 'Bay bee brou ther' but it meant little more than nonsense and annoyance to him.

Disapproving eyes, and a sense that not all attention is good attention.

Bathing in a waterfall and joking with each other about something he didn't understand now.

A girl in a corner at a feast, listening to someone prattle on about some basic scientific principle incorrectly. He looked at her, but there were disapproving eyes and a sense of threat behind them so he looked away again.

Her again, older, but the same threat was there. Did he catch a glimpse of her furtively looking at him too, or was it merely the light?

Why did being threatened seem unthinkable and normal all at once?

Cold and dark and fear and falling and hands on him and being too weak to fight anything as as as

He woke screaming, trying to place himself in the dark and there were hands on him and...

_Where am I? Where am I where am I where am I?_

But he wasn't bound down, and even when the people he couldn't see were holding him they weren't really trying to control him, and...

_What..._

Someone clapped twice and the lights came on.

He stopped struggling and stared at them, trying to get his brain in gear.

Only he couldn't because it wouldn't and and and

_Bound to a table in a darkened lab, something being secured over his head, people talking as if he weren't even there... Pain in his head..._

The people around him, familiar from the past he didn't know how long, but there were other things he knew now and he didn't understand how he knew them now and some of it didn't match up deities some of it didn't even make sense...

He sat there, shaking harder and harder, trying to understand, and then he put just enough together to think _mind damage_ and then his stomach was roiling.


	15. Chapter 15

It was a very good thing Loki had stopped struggling.

They were a mass of mismatched pajamas, bathrobes, and bedroom slippers.

Steve held him up from behind, an arm wrapped around his chest just under his arms.

Phil had a trashcan in front of him before he'd gotten through the third proper heave.

Clint and Tony were both rubbing his back as best they could.

Bruce had gone to find fresh sheets.

Pepper was getting clean pajamas from the dresser, because wow Loki'd made a mess of himself.

And that left Natasha kneeling in front of him with a wet washcloth, wiping at his face whenever he managed to keep from vomiting for a few seconds. "It's going to be okay," she told him over and over. "No one is going to hurt you here. That's over now. Just calm down."

And eventually, he managed to, eyes darting among them, clearly trying to make sense of everything.

And, given the way he brightened at Bruce's footsteps only to immediately sadden when the man entered the doorway...

"I'm that much bad news?" Bruce joked. "Which reminds me: bad news, I couldn't find clean sheets for this size bed. Apparently we've maxed out use of Tony's original copious supply. And all the extras are due to be washed in the morning."

"I think he hoped you were Thor coming back," Natasha told him.

"Of all times for his brother to be gone..." Tony grumbled.

"Maybe that's why it happened..."

All eyes on Pepper.

"Well, it makes sense. He had to figure out why he left. Loki hasn't been completely away from him for more than a few days since his mind was damaged. And even then he was in Asgard with his parents there with him. He had to figure out why Thor leaving mattered. So he's probably done a lot of thinking and he was probably doing that when he fell asleep. Subconscious mind starts feeding him things through that connection to this memory hunk Dr. Strange mentioned and he can't ignore all that for protection anymore, he has to know what's going on even just a little."

Tony's jaw dropped a bit.

"I know you, Tony, and from what I've heard and seen you two aren't entirely unlike each other. You'd do the same damn thing if you were amnesiac and force your way through to mental connections whether they wanted to come back or not. Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't." She crossed her arms. "So, if you couldn't remember why we are important to you and I suddenly went away or Bruce started avoiding you, you'd try your hardest to figure out where the pain was coming from. And sleep is when the subconscious works."

"So, he'd have done this a while ago if Thor had spent the night somewhere else?" Phil asked.

Natasha tried to keep Loki's attention on her as he looked more and more frightened between coughing and gagging fits.

"It's scary when people talk about you _like you aren't there_ , isn't it? Poor thing," she told him pointedly in soft but firm tones.

Everyone took the hint.

"I don't think he would have," Bruce mused a few minutes later. "Dr. Strange said he needed time. I'm not a psychologist, but I don't think a trigger alone would have been enough to do this."

"Thor said you've done better since you got here, haven't you?" Natasha wiped at the corners of Loki's mouth, sure there was nearly nothing left to come back up now. "Maybe you just need challenges at the right moments now."

"So, we get him cleaned up and settled in for the rest of the night?" Steve asked.

"Someone needs to stay with him. If Dr. Strange was right about cascading effects, he's going to have a bumpy few days and nights," Bruce offered.

"I was already spending the night, and I've gotten as much sleep as I need."

"I'll stay with you two," Natasha told Steve. "It needs to be two people."

"Right. Fine with me," he agreed. "Pepper, while you're up, can you go ahead and get a glass of water? He's going to need it when he's done."

"Got it."

* * *

It took a while to get him calmed down, both mind and stomach.

"See, Natasha told him,"it's going to be okay. You're safe here."

He was watching her warily, and Tony really couldn't be expected to resist stating the obvious. "I really don't think he believes you."

"And I really don't care about that right now," she shot back lightly. "Now, we've got his face cleaned up. Pepper, I think that glass of water would be useful right now.

And then came the miracle, because when she pressed the glass to Loki's lips he didn't fight. Not the slightest hint of struggle.

"That was easy," Clint whispered.

He took in a mouthful, swished it around, and spat into the trashcan.

"That's right," Natasha breathed. "Get the taste out."

He repeated it a few times, then gave them something Tony thought was probably a thankful look. He wasn't sure, because they hadn't exactly seen a thankful Loki yet.

Or at least not one who wasn't feeling completely servile and worthless.

Then, he took in what was clearly meant to be a good gulp of water.

They all moved towards various celebratory responses.

Only Loki's eyes filled with fear, he stiffened, and after a quick swish he'd spat that out too.

Clint swore.

Loki flinched, immediately looked towards him, and visibly braced his shoulders, clearly terrified.

"Not you, Loki," Clint told him with clearly forced calm. "Them. Not you."

Natasha seemed to think for a moment. "So, you are capable of still wanting to," she breathed.

"What does that matter?" Tony asked. "If he can't, he can't."

"I don't think it's that he needs to be forced. I think he needs someone else to think he's been forced."

Silence apart from distressed sniffling from Loki.

"Okay, we're going to try something. Someone get a set of towels put together, he's going to need to wash up in a moment whether this works or not, and if he feels like sneaking water in the shower again that's his choice."

Bruce walked into the bathroom.

"Steve, use your free arm to pin his head back against you. Not enough to hurt, just firm enough that he'd need to really fight to get away. And if he really tries, let him. Just bring him back slow enough that he knows what you're doing."

To Tony's surprise, he barely fought, not even when Steve gently turned his head to the side.

"Got it, then. Shh, Loki, it's going to be all right. Here, have a little water."

They took it nice and slow, sip by sip, until the rest of the water was gone.

"It's going to be that easy now?" Tony asked her.

"Looks like it."

"Great," Bruce told them as he walked in with the towels. "Less he fights, less risk he startles me."

* * *

They stripped the bed while Loki was in the shower. Everyone but Steve and Natasha went ahead and left, taking the mess with them.

Loki came out in in the fresh set of pajamas.

He looked around uneasily.

"They needed to go back to sleep, too," Steve told him softly. "It's all right. They'll still be around in the morning."

He hoped Loki got his language skills back soon.

Loki didn't seem to even understand the intent.

And then he headed straight for the bare mattress.

Natasha swore.

Loki froze, staring at her, back obviously braced for something bad to happen.

"Everyone on Thor's bed for the rest of the night," Steve said lightly. "He won't mind."

Loki looked even more confused now than he had before.

Steve gently took him by the arm and started pulling him toward the other bed.

Loki shook his head and pulled back.

"Well, it looks like you're still follow some of their rules, aren't you?" Natasha asked him. "I wish it was easier to make you understand it's all right." She walked over to the bed, ceremonially turned down the side of the sheets Steve had left the most rumpled when he'd gotten up so it looked a lot more inviting, and laid down on the side that wasn't turned down.

Loki looked puzzled for a few seconds more, and then this pained sort of resignation entered his eyes.

"What have we done this time?" Steve asked.

"Let's get him in bed, and then we can figure out how to fix it," Natasha advised him. "I doubt whatever we've just done would be worse than letting him think we think him sleeping on a bare mattress is acceptable."

"He'd think it was punishment," Steve predicted. "And the last thing we need is him thinking being ill is something we'll hurt him for."

Loki didn't resist. He laid down and let Natasha and Steve get the sheets up over his shoulders.

Steve laid down on top of the sheets on his other side.

Loki's shoulders shook. He curled up on his side, facing Steve, and his hands drifted him towards his face. One of them clutched at his pillow.

Steve reached out and held the other one.

Loki startled and looked at him sharply, surprise in his eyes.

"We're just keeping you safe," Steve told him gently. "And if you need us we'll be right here."

Loki settled back down, and at least now the dejection was off his face.

"I'll stay up with him, and let you know when I need to sleep for a while, Natka."

"That works." She clapped twice and the lights all turned out.

Steve was still trying to figure out why Tony had chosen that as a nonverbal lights-out signal to JARVIS when Natasha whispered, "Did you see what I saw?"

"He was terrified. Of drinking water."

"Not that. Terrified when he realized he'd nearly done it. Whatever they did to him..."

"We'll just have to be there for him when he can talk about it. Nothing we can do until then."

"Good night."

"Good night, Natka. And good night, Loki." He gave the alien's hand a little squeeze.

It honestly surprised him a little when Loki squeezed back.

* * *

He slept uneasily the rest of the night, stirring whenever they switched out who was awake and holding his hand.

There came a point where he felt like it ought to be time to get up, but Natasha -- he remembered her name now, along with the displaced vague idea that her kindness came as a price but what choice did he have now? -- just helped him drink a glass of water with only enough force to keep the fear down, then eat some sort of yellow fruit he couldn't remember ever having before while she still had his head pinned, and finally he got to lie down again.

He panicked a little later when he realized _that_ had been breakfast and _he_ had just spent the entire morning lying abed for something other than an injury and why did he feel that way...

It all fell into place.

_Mind control. Conditioning._

And a deep sense that _he_ should _never_ be the target of either.

She wrapped an arm around his shaking shoulders and squeezed.

But he still felt worthless.

She pointed him to the closet, then picked clothes for him after a flood of anxiety kept him seated on the edge of the bed.

She left, he got dressed, and then she came back a few minutes later with a pile of cloth.

Making the bed that he had been using took a bit of work, not least because he either didn't remember how or hadn't learned and something about the entire process seemed off somehow even as she very patiently showed him exactly what she needed him to do to help her with it.

And then started another day much like yesterday, only with hours of the morning gone from it.

He remembered more names, though not all of them.

And then, glancing in the bathroom mirror that night, he remembered. _Loki. Loki Odinson of Asgard._

But where or what was Asgard? And he knew with a sudden burst of fear that _they_ wouldn't want him using a last name at all, but what did that name mean? And why did it feel like it ought to be two words instead of one?

Who had he been before _them_?


	16. Chapter 16

Thor found himself immediately thrown back into court life.

Odin was intent on seeing him in action prior to handing over power again, just in case dealing with the invasion of Midgard and Loki's current condition had made him temporarily unfit again.

"It's not that I don't trust you, Thor. Or that I think you've lost your perspective of what a good king is. I just want to make sure you're all right."

Which meant spending a few days acting as king from a chair set a bit down from Odin's throne, while Odin literally backed him up.

It was simple things, simple disputes, for the entire first day.

They had the midday meal with the rest of the court, which meant plenty of time to catch up with Sif and the Three.

"How is he doing?" Hogun finally asked when no one else did.

"Not well, but there's more hope than we had before. The Sorcerer Supreme of Midgard took an interest in the situation. He says Loki's got a long road ahead of him, but there's a lot of progress he can make."

"That's good to hear," Volstagg told him.

"Language is predicted to take the longest, his own speech likely the last thing he'll get back," Sif told them all, as Thor had already told her.

Apparently one of the side effects of her parents' betrayal was that she had become very protective of Loki.

The Three all cringed.

"I wish I had not said it," Volstagg said a moment later. "If he remembers, you tell him that."

"It might be better coming from you, if he remembers and is recovered enough for visitors," Thor told him.

"How far can he recover?" Fandral asked. "We only went to see him the once, when your mother was trying to find out how many 'safe' people he recognized, but..."

Thor remembered that day. Loki had barely paid their presence any mind at all, even though he was already very clear on who his family was by then.

Or, in light of what they now knew, he'd been clear that his family was supportive and meant no harm.

"There's quite a lot he can get back, but Dr. Strange thinks full recovery isn't possible. There was too much damage, and the coercion and mental conditioning they had him under was too extreme to begin with. He may get to the point where he can be mostly independent in day-to-day life, but he'll always need looking after when it comes to big decisions."

"Damn," Fandral cursed.

"At least second princes are never expected to be entirely independent," Hogun reminded them.

"This is a bit different than a king ordering his brother where to take the army and when," Volstagg replied. "A second prince may be dependent on the monarch, but he's supposed to be ready to take over if the need comes. Either as king in his own right, or as a temporary reigning regent."

"Yes, but it's a mental framework that may keep it from grating on him as badly as it could!" Sif shot back.

Thor knew better than to get involved, but it did make him feel better.

Loki still fit in the family the way he was supposed to. And the news of his heritage honestly would have disqualified him from the throne in the eyes of a lot of the people of Asgard anyway, so his little time ruling that had gone so wrong was probably the only time he would have ever sat on the throne even if everything else had gone right instead of happening the way it had.

And then one day, hopefully a long way off, it would be King Thor and his brother Loki, and whoever Thor married as queen -- probably Sif, although that was going to take longer to happen now than he'd always thought, and her defensiveness of Loki boded very well in that regard given how much influence Frigga had over the day-to-day lives of the royal family now -- and then little princes running around eventually. Different than it might have been, but still a good life.

Thor had been looking forward to being a reasonably indulgent uncle some day, but then Loki's true heritage had likely prevented that outcome in the first place and with Loki in this state adopting or fostering was probably unthinkable.

And Thor was probably never going to have a sister-in-law by marriage, either, because first there was the issue of what Asgardian woman would want to marry a mind-damaged biologically-Jotun prince for anything but the access to the throne he could provide even if he healed as much as he could and second there was the issue of if Loki was ever going to get to the point where he could consent -- or not consent, which was the bigger issue as Thor saw it -- to marriage at all. And that didn't even figure in the problem of finding a woman Loki would find attractive who fit the first criteria. Sure he'd stared at a girl across the room for ages according to Dr. Strange, but she hadn't made an effort back and for all anyone knew, she might have even been a conspirator.

And then the Three were on Loki's side, now that they understood why he'd always been different and just what had gotten into his head when everything happened, so that meant Loki had the support of Thor's questing companions.

A smaller family than he'd anticipated, but it could have been so had nothing ever happened to Loki so all was well in that sense at least.

And then it was time for an afternoon at court, and then dinner with his parents, and then he read himself to sleep with the old picture books and wondered as he drifted off if these were really the least Jotun-unfriendly books Asgard had for that reading level -- or if they were simply books _everyone_ their age had read and therefore unavoidable if Loki was to remain unsuspected -- because quite a number of them were truly awful.

Or they seemed awful now.

When they were kids, they were just books.

_No wonder Loki thought he was a monster._

* * *

Loki did a lot of thinking the first day he had his name back. It slowed him down some, but no one seemed to notice or mind and so it was, at least for now, something worth risking.

_Odinson_. What in the world could it mean?

That was most of the thinking he did. The rest was simple trying to put together the flashes of memory he'd gotten before he got sick into some sort of coherent structure. And that triggered a lot of other memories as well.

So by evening, while he didn't have a clear picture of who he was, he did have the general idea that the place he'd been before this was probably where he'd been before _them_. Which only increased the questions of why he was not there now.

And then he started wondering what they did to their own Failures. Except this was really too nice to be punishment. But then what happened to Failures really wasn't either -- they just couldn't be trusted not to defy _**him**_ or be of any use to _**him**_. So they were kept out of trouble, and then eventually sent to _**his lady**_ with whatever messages he wanted to send her.

But the details of that were fuzzy, and he had the distinct idea that keeping them that way was a good thing.

There had been some people in and out of the place he had been. Vaguely familiar, but not enough he'd felt it worth trying to interact with them. Better to stay quiet and neutral and not risk anything.

But then there had been the three. The tall one who had brought him here and was now missing, possibly for good. The woman who had stayed with him most of the time and slept to one side of him at night. The silver-haired man who had slept to his other side and seemed to spend as little time around Loki as he could while being overly affectionate whenever he was around.

And they had been people he knew before _them_. But who were they?

He wracked his brain that night in the dark, as he lay in his own bed again with Steve -- another name he knew now -- in the other alone.

He finally dredged up a memory of the four of them together, along with a woman he hadn't seen since _them_ who stood next to him. And the silver-haired one was calling the tall one "Thor Odin's son" quite clearly.

It was two words, run together normally for convenience of use. He'd been right about that.

So the tall one was Thor, and they were both of the surname Odinson.

Which implied some sort of a relationship, but then coming all the way here with him and staying so long and taking care of him so much of the time also implied that.

And then there was the question of who Odin was and what 'son' meant and why he felt like not knowing that made him more worthless than ever.

He yawned.

He couldn't stop trying to pull at the mental thread, not now that he was finally getting something from it.

Memories of doing things together. Studying books he couldn't begin to understand the meaning of now, even though he could nearly remember what they'd said. Sparring. Wrestling, at least as much as Loki could manage and it was _always_ one-sided very quickly. Sprained ankles, bandaged knees, the woman looking down at them and telling them that... that... that...

That they were brothers and were supposed to be keeping each other out of trouble instead of goading each other into it.

Brothers.

That was a word with some clear associations. Enough associations that other words became clear soon after: father, son, mother, sister, parents, family.

So Thor was brother, and the silver-haired man was Odin and their father, and the woman was their mother and while he couldn't remember her name it was only a matter of time, and he knew the other woman was not his sister but there was some sort of a connection that mattered there, some reason she was standing with them.

But then, why hadn't she come to see him? Had something happened to her between that memory and now?

And why had he been sent _here_ , when he clearly belonged _there_? And why had Thor, his brother, seemingly abandoned him here?

For the first time he could remember since he'd been damaged he felt like someone had active responsibilities toward him, instead of only the other way around.

It was a terrifying feeling, and the only way he calmed himself enough to settle down again was by reminding himself over and over that he wasn't ascribing such responsibilities to _them_ \-- ascribing them to _**him**_ was simply unthinkable -- just someone who had never been in _**his**_ service. And recognizing such relationships and responsibilities could even be useful in _**his**_ service, if it let you do necessary things better or at all.

So even though he wasn't considering doing that, had no orders, had no contact, wasn't even sure if _they_ could even find a way to give him orders right now damaged as he was, and had a feeling he knew what would happen if _they_ found him now, that made it okay somewhat. Because he still technically could if ordered and wasn't showing signs he wouldn't.

He tried to get to sleep. This was more than enough for one day.

Tomorrow, he could try to figure out why Thor was gone. And why in so many of those memories, he seemed like he didn't quite fit where he was.


	17. Chapter 17

"Mother," Thor asked the next morning over breakfast, "why did that pile of books you handed me have so many negative messages about the Jotun? I understand having some of them -- they were our enemies back then, after all -- but... and with Loki listening and reading too..."

She sighed. "We were trying to hide what he was, Thor. If I'd had my way, there would have been no need. We kept the worst of it away from you boys, but it was so pervasive... We'd have had to commission books in order to completely avoid it, and unless we had specified otherwise, those would have had the same messages in them."

"And there would be that many more people around who might know."

She nodded. "And then you would have begun associating with other children of the court around your own ages, and they would have all those prejudices themselves. And while we found tutors who already knew or who we could trust to know, well, it was hard to find textbooks that didn't have all that in them. Then, you both started reading original texts in your chosen fields, and if we hadn't at least exposed you to the fact anti-Jotun sentiment existed..."

"Then we would have been floored by some of what we were reading." A few military tomes and scientific texts on the other realms came to mind.

"And he'll need to see those, eventually. When he's well enough and remembers enough to be told why he had to go."

"...what? No."

"Yes. Thor, he has to be told when he can handle it. He has to know why he fell, why he was ever in his tormentors' hands at all, why he had to recover on Midgard instead of surrounded by family at home."

_'When I'm king, I'll hunt the monsters down and slay them all.'_ "But..."

"He must," Odin told them as he walked into the room and took his own seat. "Hiding the world from him will do him no good."

"If he's always going to need a guardian anyway..."

"Thor, he has to see family as being fundamentally honest with him now. He has to get used to those looking out for him making judgments about him based on information he also knows. How else is he supposed to have the first idea when complaining might be appropriate?" Frigga counseled.

"That's just it. He doesn't complain about being mistreated. At least not for anything less than being stepped on. He's even protested being treated 'too well'. I had to sleep on the floor with him all the way to the place called New York because he refused to sleep in a bed if anyone else was on the floor."

"All the more reason," Odin replied. "And besides, one day Asgard will be safe for him again. And yet, there will be words said in corridors about Jotun who are not him. If he gets to the point where he only needs help in the largest decisions of his life, will you wish him barred from leaving the royal quarters in case a stray word teaches him the truth of how others saw him? And what if he remembers it anyway? Deception within the family has failed him. Now, we must try honesty, as much as he can take."

Frigga tried a different argument. "Thor, you told us this Dr. Strange thought he would be returning to something a lot closer to his old personality soon."

Thor nodded.

"You knew Loki well. Would the man he was before have tolerated being kept ignorant like that?"

"No," Thor admitted. "He was too bright for it, anyway."

"And if that part of himself is recovered?" Odin asked.

"Then it will again be worthless to try."

"Thor, there is a thing I am not sure you understand in your heart yet," Frigga told him.

"What is it, Mother?"

"The brother you end up with seems less likely to be the man who now is with some of the capabilities of the man who was, and more likely to be the man who was with many of the limitations of the man who now is. He will know what he has lost and be capable of being quite frustrated at what he is incapable of doing for himself."

The thought was horrifying. Loki had been frustrated enough as it was.

And then he thought of the girl Loki had apparently been interested in, and the fact Loki was going to figure out sooner or later, if he remembered her, that he really hadn't had a chance.

Thor wondered if she'd known she was being watched, if she knew her father was warning a prince away from her, what she had thought when she found out who he was...

And didn't mention her, because it was the last thing Frigga needed to hear.

The thought of what Loki was facing stayed with him all that day and all the next.

* * *

Loki took longer than the one day to work everything through, even though the first day's thought did produce the fact he was a second prince and some of the things associated with that, but on the second day he finally realized it while showering in the evening.

_The Odinsleep._

Thor would have to go home. He was the heir, and the realm was more important than any single member of the royal family.

Especially when the people here had already been helping Thor take care of him.

It was very frustrating, even shaming, to understand that he had forgotten something that had always been so fundamental to his life.

He counted days on his fingers.

_Too long._

If Thor had left when it began, he ought to be back by now.

So either he left early or something had gone wrong again.

_Wait, when has anything ever gone wrong with the Odinsleep?_

He remembered that had always been a worry of his and that Thor had laughed at him once or twice over it, but for something to happen...

No, something had gone wrong, horribly wrong, with the start of it, once, because he remembered Odin lying helpless on the ground alone with him.

But why would he have... None of it made _sense_. It wasn't the way the world worked.

He eased down into the tub, instinctually knowing that he did _not_ want to be standing for whatever memories came back next.

Cold water beat down on his back.

He and Thor had always quarreled over bathing opportunities while in the field questing, he remembered, because inevitably Thor would try to turn down perfectly good refreshing meltwater as being 'freezing cold' despite the fact it wouldn't be if it had _stopped_ being snow, now could it?

But what did that have to do with Odin, besides the shushing Thor had gotten that one time he borrowed a Midgardian joke and claimed Loki's mountain stream habits would turn him blue someday...

Turn him blue.

It had happened.

He could remember the feel of the fingers on his arm as the armor grew brittle and fragmented off of him.

Jotunheim, for the first time, and for an ice world it had felt comfortable despite Heimdall's warning...

What did the Odinsleep going wrong have to do with...

The memory of a single conversation came in a flash of knowledge and horror.

_No. Nononononono. Please, no!_

Jotun.

He didn't remember everything about what that meant, exactly, but he knew he had called himself a monster and it took something big and large and wrong to make you think that about yourself, right? And he couldn't think of any positive association he had with the term.

He and Thor weren't brothers after all, then. There was no shared blood between them. Did Thor know? Had he been faking everything so Loki would think everything was as it had been before?

He remembered Laufey, and the conversation gave him his name.

Had Laufey known his people were missing a living child? Had he been told what Loki's true nature was after his body betrayed its secret at last?

Was Loki here for protection, for hiding, for shuffling off where no one could see the monster raised to think himself a man? Useless to Asgard as anything more than a curiosity?

Why had Odin sent him away? Why had he and Frigga kept up the fiction of family when he was still too damaged to care? And what would Laufey do when he heard...

And in one final wave of memories, Loki knew that Laufey would never be doing anything ever again.

* * *

Thor stayed at the evening meal chatting with Sif and the Warriors Three until the servants very nearly had to run them and the rest of the stragglers off.

He'd been back for three nights, now, and tomorrow he'd be taking over while his father slept. Best to get his socializing in while he could, especially since he planned on returning to Midgard as quickly as Odin would let him afterward.

They were just getting up when a young woman Thor thought he'd seen hanging around the edges of feasts before walked over cautiously.

"It's all right, Sig," Sif told her with an exasperated look.

She still seemed shy and flustered even when she seemed to take heart from the words. "Um, m'lord Thor?"

"Yes?"

"Well, um, my family... I'm sorry, not that I had anything to do with it of course..." The last was far too fast, as if she feared he'd think she'd agreed with them even though this was the last place she'd be if she had.

"You want to apologize."

She nodded. "Yes. I... I should have known something was up. The things they always said. Said something was wrong with him. Not that I think there was anything wrong with him." Again, she finished too fast.

"Sig, calm down," Sif told her. "We've been over this. The Allfather knows you weren't involved, and an accidental misspeak because you get flustered so much is not going to change that."

She nodded. "So I'm sorry about that, and wanted you to know I hope he recovers quickly and fully."

That hit a nerve that had been getting ever more sore since yesterday morning. Thor gave a quick shake of his head and bluntly told her, "He can't."

The little bit of brightness that had returned to her face with Sif's reassurance left. "I'm sorry to hear that." She gave a little nod of respect and took her leave.

"Her father gave her as much trouble for being a scientific type as mine gave me for wanting to fight," Sif told Thor and the Three as they left. "Sorcery's more appropriate for girls, you see, and she's got some potential but her mind's more suited to... well, they didn't know each other, I'm sure of that, but she's read most of his public work. I think she was dreaming of begging to pick his mind for fifteen minutes if her father ever let up on her."

Volstagg shook his head. "The way we used to try to shut him up about it?"

"She'd have been lucky to get away after thirty minutes," Fandral joked weakly.

"An hour," Hogun corrected.

* * *

It was quite a while before Loki left the bathroom and crawled into bed with barely a nod to Steve, whose presence seemed a lot less innocuous now.

He lay awake for a long time wondering if the difference between being controlled to prevent accidental harm to oneself and the sort of prison he seemed to recall Odin preferred for prisoners who couldn't remember their offenses would look like from the inside.

It was not a pleasant thought to fall sleep to.


	18. Chapter 18

"He would get like this when everyone else is away, wouldn't he?" Tony said to no one in particular.

Loki had still been asleep when Pepper had left on her multi-day business trip as Tony's proxy given the current situation, Clint had been called away on SHIELD duties, Natasha and Phil had both needed to go give Fury an extensive update on the situation that they might be days getting back from...

So it was Tony, Steve, and Bruce when Loki had decided to start fighting properly when they'd tried to get breakfast into him.

"Was it this bad when you were traveling?" Bruce asked quietly enough that Loki might not hear him on the other side of the door. They could have stepped further away, but with Loki like this... depending on JARVIS for an alert something was wrong didn't seem right. There was too much risk.

"No, he wasn't," Tony told him. "A little bit of fighting. Not this."

"At least we got water into him," Steve offered.

"Not enough," Bruce replied. "If it just lasts the day, he'll be all right, but given the fact he was thin to begin with..."

"Do we even know what his dehydration profile is?" Tony asked. "I mean, we got the right saline and glucose solution ratios from Thor in case we needed them, but we don't know how fast he might degrade, do we?"

"No. And with what Dr. Strange told us, I'm not willing to resort to medical intervention until we need to. Not the first day."

"And yes, I've already tried calling him. He's out on planetary business, no clue when he'll be back."

Tony leaned back against the wall. "So we just keep offering food and water and hope whatever mental funk he's in breaks before his body starts to?

"Pretty much," Bruce confirmed.

"I don't like this."

"None of us do." Steve paced a little. "But what choice do we have? You heard Dr. Strange, the only options we've got for medical nutrition support are things he's terrified of for reason."

"And this is the first time he's really stood up for himself about anything," Bruce reminded them. "He needs to keep it within reason, but intervening before he's actually at risk of harming himself could set his recovery back."

Tony swore.

* * *

Thor sat on his father's throne and felt swallowed by it.

This wasn't the first time he'd been the substitute during the Odinsleep. Just the first time there was somewhere else he'd rather be.

_Another day, and Father will be awake again,_ he reminded himself. _And then I can go back to Midgard and be with Loki again._

This was already the longest they had been apart since they had been reunited.

Even when Loki's state had seemed so hopeless Thor couldn't stand being in his presence for very long at all, he'd made a point to visit and not just because Frigga refused to leave Loki's side for long.

Thor wondered if this was what his father had felt like, those times he'd needed to do something for the sake of the realm when one of them was sick or hurt past what the healing stones could handle in one treatment.

All the power of Asgard at his command for a single day.

And there was nothing he could do with any of it to help Loki.

All day long there were a lot of little things he could do to help his realm, and a few medium things, and a couple of big rulings he realized could more than wait for Odin's reawakening and deferred so that Odin himself could make them.

But there was nothing that could help Loki, other than simply making sure that if he ever was able to return to Asgard there would be an Asgard for him to return to.

* * *

"He's definitely not drinking enough," Bruce established that night.

"So, tomorrow we intervene?" Tony asked, trying to make it very apparent he expected the others to agree.

"I don't like it," Steve said. "We don't know what they did to him or how bad it was, and with the warning Dr. Strange gave us..."

"But he's really not in any condition to do this," Bruce told them. "We don't even know how much of a grasp on cause and effect he has beyond 'I do something wrong, other people hurt me'. He doesn't... Legally he's in no condition to refuse treatment, period. We don't know that he knows what he's refusing. Life-sustaining care, forget it, we've got an obligation towards him."

"You gonna be okay if he fights it?" Tony asked him.

"So long as Steve takes care of overpowering him. I'm used to people who resist because they can't understand what's going on in their condition, but not people who can overpower me."

"I'll handle that, don't worry about it."

"I just wish there was a way we could explain we're trying to help him if we have to do it. He's going to be terrified no matter how gentle I am with him."

"So, if he doesn't eat breakfast, we intervene?" Steve proposed uneasily.

Tony and Bruce agreed.

* * *

Steve was sitting beside him in a chair tonight.

They hadn't left him alone all day, but then no one left Loki alone unless he was in the bathroom, and much as he wished the world were different they were setting the times for that and try as he might he couldn't fight his way past the terror to change that.

If they'd accept him changing that.

He could tell they weren't happy about the food, but he just couldn't stand the thought of eating. Water had been hard enough to manage.

He hadn't cried, not since he'd bathed last night, but he'd felt like it all day.

And the adult he felt like he needed the most right now wasn't ever going to be available, and that was his fault.

And for all he knew, the way Frigga and Odin had been treating him was just out of some twisted idea that treating him well now would make up for something or was an obligation they'd taken on when they'd taken him in.

And if Thor was coming back, he'd have already been back.

And he still didn't have a way to communicate and even if he did it was unlikely he'd be able to manage using it so what did it matter if he was going to be mute no matter what?

Loki rolled so his back was to Steve.

He didn't feel like having company right now.

Steve clapped once and the lights dimmed to nearly nothing.

Loki curled up on himself and felt the tears start to roll in the dark.

He wondered why in his memories, other people made a lot of sound when they cried but he wasn't making any now.

* * *

"Okay, Loki," Tony announced as he walked through the door the next morning, "we brought pancakes."

Bruce surged forward from behind him.

Steve was sitting with a very drained-looking Loki.

_He's worse off than we thought he would be._

"Glass of water, now," Bruce ordered.

Tony handed it to him off the tray he was carrying.

Steve got Loki lifted up in bed, damnit if it didn't look like he couldn't manage it on his own, and Bruce got the water to his lips.

And miracle of miracles, Loki drank without a fight.

But then a moment later, it came right back up.

"That's not good," Steve commented.

"No, it's not." Bruce looked around the bed, touched the pillow, and swore unnaturally calmly.

"What?" Tony asked him.

"He's been crying."

"I didn't hear anything and I know I stayed up the entire night just in case..."

"Then he's learned to cry silently and he's got a lot less water in him than we thought he did. We need to get him into the infirmary. _Now._ "

* * *

Warm arms were picking him up before Loki had the chance to process that he had broken the rule about drinking and had promptly been unable to keep water down.

The three humans were talking in reassuring tones, but it didn't help.

He'd just wanted to be left alone. Not to feel like this. Not to be so sick water didn't stay down.

He felt them moving, every step jarring him and his aching head, and protested the little he could at the feel of it.

The warm hand of another on his shoulder, and more reassuring words.

And then a room that was clearly medical in nature, and some bits of knowledge fell into place.

Fear spiked even as he felt sicker than he had been.

He hadn't cared much for living this way, but that didn't mean he wanted to _die_.

He felt himself laid down on a narrow bed.

There was a pleading voice he didn't have the language skills to understand as the world faded out.

* * *

Thor went by his parents' bedroom to say good morning to both of them and hand power back to Odin.

But Odin was still asleep.

Thor accused, "He was holding off, wasn't he? Again."

"Loki _needed_ you, Thor. It was only for a little while. This shouldn't be anything like what happened before."

"How long then?"

"Another day at the most."

He closed his eyes. "I'm not asking Heimdall anything about Loki until I'm on my way back." It was as much notification to his mother as a reminder to himself that he'd sworn to himself not to go charging down to the Bifrost for news.

Frigga nodded. "Asgard cannot afford you leaving early. Not with the upheaval that happened when you and your brother left so soon in the past. There must be a ruler here, for threat if nothing else."

He nodded. "For Loki's sake."

"Yes, and for the rest of us."

"I don't like this."

"This is what being a good king is, Thor. Being a bad brother when your realm demands it of you. Being a less than stellar father because giving your children and those of others a safe home is more important than bedtime stories. Having to decide between keeping the peace and completely removing a prejudice."

"What do you mean?"

"We could have cleaned out the anti-Jotun sentiment entirely. But it would have identified Loki as what he is, and at an age when he was helpless to defend himself against any attack. And the sudden change, while we were still officially at war with only a flimsy truce to defend us all... it couldn't be risked."

"But those books..."

Frigga sighed. "Ask Sif to show you the ones she grew up with. Odin permitted her to keep them to herself and in her possession, as a proof to herself of her parents' treachery. You have the authority to request it, until he wakes. And I expect he would permit it if you asked him after."

Thor nodded, determined. "I will ask her, and see."

* * *

Loki wasn't responding by the time Bruce got an IV needle in him.

"I thought you said you'd set things up last night?" Tony accused.

Bruce seemed to count under his breath before he answered. "I did. I just expected I'd be talking him into not balking at a nasogastric tube, instead of working on emergency rehydration."

"Just calm down," Steve told them both. "This won't help him."

"There, that's started," Bruce said as he hung the saline bag up on a pole.

"We should have done this last night," Tony declared in a voice as scared as Steve had ever heard it.

"We didn't think we needed to, and if JARVIS didn't pick up that he was crying there's no way I could have..."

"Quiet," Bruce ordered, a hand stuck between the buttons on Loki's pajamas shirt at breastbone height and the other at his neck.

_No..._

* * *

She was beautiful in her way, although decidedly _not_ his type.

Thor might have loved her, though. There was something astonishingly Sif-like about her that Loki couldn't place.

He was enough of an innate sorcerer to know her, even if his focus had been technological, and between that and his conditioning he bowed his head to her.

She gave nothing more than a sad little smile in answer.

_I wish it wasn't my time,_ he thought, _but it's a little late for that to be taken into consideration, isn't it?_

She came over to him and ruffled the back of his hair the way Frigga used to do and gave him a quick little peck on the forehead with lips so true an illusion they could be felt.

When she moved her arms around him, he gave in and let himself settle into the embrace of Death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I am not THAT cruel.


	19. Chapter 19

Loki was lying face down on a bench in a darkened room that felt airy and cool and wonderful. His arms were just long enough for his fingers to brush the stone floor.

And a large hand -- too large -- was stroking his hair and back.

For the first time since he'd been damaged, he tried to speak, hoping that at least in the afterlife he'd have his voice back.

What came out was a mangle of sound that with some intensive contemplation resolved itself as the word, "Who?"

"You know who," came a voice like gravel with the strength of a mountain... and all the warmth of a Midgardian polar bear playing with her cubs.

They were the first words he'd understood, and there was an odd feeling about the whole thing.

He spoke again, longer, more drawn out because the thing he was saying was, and it was a jumble of repeated syllables and sounds attached to more than one syllable and it was something like stuttering but entirely more horrifying. "Laufey." He felt ashamed then, and horrified too, knowing it was clear the damage had come with him even here. And for other reasons. "Suh... Suh..."

"Shh," the Jotun lord hushed him. "You did not know the truth of that day. _Odin_ does not know the truth of that day." The hand moved in firm circles on his back.

"What?" he managed to mangle in the same fashion.

"It is our way," came another voice nearby with similar rough warmth, "for those born too weak to live to get their final suffering over all at once, rather than eking it out over weeks with no hope of changing the outcome."

"I wished you could have lived, back then. I was _glad_ when I found out you had lived. But by the law, I could give you neither recognition as family nor inheritance."

The shame became crushing. He babbled out in the worst mangle yet, "I told you that you could give me Asgard."

"Given that you are still barely over a thousand and that I was older, far older... I should have been the one to stop and think and realize that a child reared as an enemy will not embrace his blood-people when he first learns the truth." Laufey hadn't stopped rubbing his back, and he didn't stop now. "And you were certainly a different person then."

"Which is the official stance of the current Jotun king," the other told him. "You need never fear your own blood-kin now, unless you give them new reason to harm you."

"Who are you?" Loki asked.

He was getting used to his own devastated voice, he was sure of it, and that hurt.

"Farbauti."

"Loki, there is something you _must_ understood," Laufey began. "Not all the changes they forced on you body were without source in you. Some were who you would have been had you not been a shapeshifter or had you not been taken by Odin."

He instantly knew what was meant and it made his skin crawl.

He hadn't even liked to acknowledge _that_ change when he was living with it.

"Loki, you are what you are," Laufey told him. "You are a shapeshifter by nature. What your mind tells you you ought to be, you become."

"So this changes little of who you are," Farbauti reassured him.

He knew the biology term for what he suspected -- there were all sorts of systems in use across even just this universe, even if only a few were common among species intelligent enough to become significant in the eyes of other realms -- but it was more than he could manage to spit it out. He did manage the word "Jotun" but the next was a hopeless jumble even he could decipher, and he _knew_ exactly what he had been trying to say.

"Jotun are masculine hermaphrodites? This is what you were trying to say?"

"Yes," Loki mangled out.

"And so we are. At least in the scientific framework of Asgardian xenobiological study." Farbauti drew as close to him as Laufey was and tousled his hair. "Although more than a few of us gravitate toward what someone in a binary gender system would consider one pole or the other. If you identify as 'male' enough for your natural abilities to shape you so, who can hope to argue with it? That is who you are."

He was still greatly discomfited by the idea.

Farbauti sighed. "Only Frigga knows. And the Sorcerers Supreme, some of them, but they don't and won't care. Better for Jotunheim that it stays that way. Keep your silence if you wish, and let no one suspect anything different."

"Wait. You're talking like I'm not..." Even mangling, he couldn't get that last word out.

"The Lady has granted you a boon, child," Laufey told him.

"That I get to live?"

Some boon, with the condition he was in. Not that he wanted to die, but a proper boon was supposed to be less value-neutral.

"No. A single skipped heartbeat is enough to arrange this for someone with innate sorcery, should she wish. And they caught your condition just in time for that to be as close as you got to dying." He could almost hear the smile in Farbauti's voice. "And so the Lady wished to grant you, while the opportunity presented itself to her."

"A bit of absolution, a bit of knowing we wanted you, and a bit of putting together who you are."

A thought struck him. A horrible one. But that wasn't the question he asked. "So which one of you two... bore..." He couldn't finish it.

"I was dead months before you were born," Farbauti told him. "An accident, so there is no need to blame anyone from Asgard."

_That_ was a weight off his shoulders. Being responsible for what had happened to Laufey was bad enough!

And then he comprehended the rest of it.

Mother polar bear, indeed.

"Time grows sort. Goodbye, little one," Laufey told him.

"We'll see each other again, someday," Farbauti promised.

The feel of their hands on him, the bench under his body, and the stone against his fingers faded away.

The last thing he knew was the thought that because of the darkness and because he hadn't looked, he didn't know if he'd been pink or blue.

* * *

Bruce relaxed after a moment.

"It was close there for a minute. Tony, get that monitoring equipment over here."

"On it."

Steve stood there, just watching as they worked, and it wasn't until they'd taped a few leads on Loki's chest and clipped some sort of plastic thing on one of his fingers that he really understood.

Because that's when a very familiar beeping started.

And then it started screaming at them.

"What?" Steve asked, suddenly worried all over again. What else could go wrong?

"This is set for human body temperature norms."

"So?"

"He's Jotun," Tony said flatly. "His resting temperature even in our climate and even shifted out of his native form is still below our threshold for medical intervention." He put a hand on Loki's forehead. "That's about how warm he usually feels, Bruce."

"Great, now can you hack this thing so it will consider _this_ normal for him?"

Tony got to work on it.

Half of the bag on the IV pole was already gone. Bruce rummaged through some supplies and then hung a second bag, labeled differently, beside it.

And then he noticed Steve.

"He should be all right now," Bruce reassured him. "We just need to monitor him to make sure of it, and so we know how well he's recovering. We're getting fluids into him now, and I've got a glucose solution ready for once that runs out, so we can keep his blood sugar from dropping since he hasn't been eating and can't even try while he's unconscious."

That helped a little.

The warning shrill ended and Tony turned to face him. "Capsicle, we don't just use this stuff on people who are dying or who are in dire enough straits that they might if no one can hear if something goes wrong. Yes, Peggy was being monitored. And so was Phil. And I'm sure you were when they unfroze you, at least once they knew you were alive, even if you don't remember it. But it doesn't take being in that kind of dire condition to make hooking him up worthwhile, especially since we can't ask him and he can't tell us how he's feeling."

"He's going to be terrified when he wakes up."

"He ought to be, he was in bad enough shape when he passed out," Tony replied.

"I don't mean that. He's as unused to modern Earth medical technology as I was when I woke up. Asgardians are more advanced -- for all we know they can monitor all of this without touching the patient with anything. What if their IV technology looks completely different? What if he can't even remember any of what their medical technology is like?"

"Then we try to get him calmed down when that happens. And restrain him _lightly_ so he can't hurt himself if he freaks out," Bruce told him. "It's not an uncommon issue when dealing with medical care in the 3rd world. I'm used to it."

"What's that thing on his finger, anyway? Peggy... she didn't have one of those."

"Temperature and blood oxygen levels. And pulse, but the chest leads are more accurate for that."

"Which also lets us be sure he's still getting blood into his extremities. I have no clue what Jotun medical shock states even look like, and given the environment they're naturally adapted to..." Bruce shook his head. "I need all the medical data I can get."

Something about that stuck in Steve's mind. "No. We shouldn't..."

"It's not experimentation, it's getting basic information for his own good," Tony assured him. "And when he recovers, we'll have baseline numbers to compare to if he ever gets hurt or sick again."

Loki moved a little, but there was no sign he was regaining consciousness yet.

"Wonder what got into him," Tony said.

"We won't find out until Dr. Strange gets here," Bruce told them. "If then. And chances are Loki's going to sleep all day -- I have a feeling he was crying most of the night." He rummaged in a drawer. "If he's moving, we need to make sure he doesn't pull that out. I'd rather not have to talk him into letting me stick a needle in him later, not when this IV line should be safe to use for as long as he needs this." Bruce pulled out two contraptions made of cloth.

Steve _really_ didn't like this.

"Just his hands," Bruce told him after he saw the look on his face. "Just until we know he won't pull the IV out."

The bed-rails went up and a moment later Loki's left hand was secured to the railing past his head where it would be easy for them to access the IV site if they needed to and his right was secured to the other rail at his waist.

"I need to sleep," Steve reminded them, "but after that I'll sit with him. This wouldn't have happened if I'd realized he was crying."

"I'll take this morning," Tony offered. "And Natasha, Clint, and Phil _should_ be back by tonight. They called very late last night."

"Phil's going to start yelling," Bruce predicted.

"No, he won't," Tony countered. "First, he won't risk the other guy showing up near Loki. Second, until Loki can understand speech, yelling in defense of him within his hearing is incredibly counterproductive."

Steve laid down on one of the other, unoccupied, medical beds.

He felt a little hungry and then he recognized the smell in the air.

"You brought the pancakes?" he asked Tony, suddenly ravenous.

"Yes. I didn't have time to put them down until we got here."

"Well, Loki isn't going to be eating them and I haven't had food yet this morning..."

Bruce laughed.

* * *

Frigga was sitting in the stillness after Thor's departure when she saw the tear run down Odin's cheek.

That had never been a good sign.

Something somewhere must have gone wrong. She hoped it wasn't something to do with Loki, not so close to the anniversary of his adoption.

Which was tomorrow, not that she expected anyone outside the family to remember anymore. And Thor was so out of sorts and out of sync with the Asgardian calendar that she really didn't expect him to remember.

It took all her will to resist running down to Heimdall. To resist using the little sorcery she possessed to try to _look_ wherever her husband was _looking_.

Odin needed her as his constant defender, as always, during the Odinsleep. Asgard needed Thor on the throne.

Who else could be sent to deal with _anything_?

Sif? The poor girl could hardly be asked right now. And that was if it were something a single warrior could fix. And if Frigga hadn't already told Thor to go talk to her today.

The Warriors Three were so far as Frigga knew still determined to be _right there_ for Thor while he was trapped away from Loki.

No. Everything would need to wait.

She drew her sword from its sheath in the bed frame and sat with it across her lap.

_Just in case,_ she told herself.


	20. Chapter 20

It was unmistakable when Loki woke up.

One breath he was sleeping.

The next he was giving the restraint on his right wrist a half-conscious tug.

And by the third he was yowling and struggling.

Steve had him held down at the shoulders a moment later. "It's okay. You're going to be all right, Loki. We aren't angry with you. We're trying to _help_ you."

Loki calmed a little but he kept up the tugging and the pleading little yowls.

And then Steve recognized the terror in his eyes, and immediately let up.

He cursed a little to himself. _We kept wondering what they could have done to him. We never asked what they could have made him do to himself..._

The restraint was Velcro-based, and Steve had learned enough about Velcro that he had Loki's wrist loose from the railing and reattached closer to his shoulders a very little while later.

Loki calmed down entirely, and then he seemed ashamed.

"It's not your fault they messed with you and your mind," Steve told him with a little squeeze of his shoulder. "But you're safe now."

He sat back down and held Loki's hand, and then Loki settled back down and dozed for a few more hours.

Bruce came through at one point to switch an empty glucose solution bag for a new one. He didn't say a thing about the changed restraint beyond a simple, "JARVIS let us know what happened," and that was that.

And then Loki woke up, more properly aware.

"I'm still here," Steve told him as he blinked awake. "Bruce changed out the IV bag a little while ago," he said with a little nod toward said bag, "but I think we all figured some Not Being Bothered time would be good for you."

Loki made a little sound as he looked up at the bag.

"Sorry. Can't do a thing about that. Not until you've recovered and you're eating enough again. And since you were dehydrated to start with, at least from what Bruce can figure out, that may take a while."

Loki glanced over at him, clearly not comprehending what Steve had said. He nodded up at the bag and repeated the sound.

"I just told you, I can't do anything about that... wait a minute. You're nodding toward the bag, not your hand..."

And it hadn't sounded much like a complaint, even though complaints and what could best be described as pain-notifications were the only sounds Loki had been using since he got here and according to Thor since he'd had the mind control ripped out of his head, so much as...

"You want to know what we're dripping into you." He gave Loki's shoulder a squeeze. "I'll be right back."

He walked over to the intercom on the wall, installed apparently so Tony could hide the fact JARVIS was a whole-house AI if he wanted to. He punched the button. "JARVIS, I need to talk to Bruce."

"Bruce and Tony are in their laboratory, Stephen. I'm connecting you now."

"What's up, Capsicle?"

"He's asking what's in the IV bag."

Dead silence.

"He's _asking_?" Bruce repeated, just calmly enough that Steve didn't see a need to get worried.

And besides, they'd picked that lab for a reason. If Bruce was going to be somewhere constantly, you picked a place where you didn't mind things getting a bit, well, smashed. And with JARVIS recording everything they did and the size of Tony's bank accounts and other investments, even an experiment getting destroyed wouldn't be a complete loss.

"Yes. Not with words, but it's very clear. First time I've heard him vocalize about something that wasn't pain or discomfort. I think he got a bit annoyed with me when I assumed he was complaining about the IV itself."

"It's just a plain glucose and saline solution?" Tony asked.

"Yes. Just that," Bruce confirmed.

"I'll be there in a few minutes. I just need to make one stop on the way."

* * *

Tony didn't know what to expect when he entered the infirmary.

He hoped it really had been a question, because that opened up possibilities of back and forth communication and _that_ was what they needed even more than Loki simply not being a complete doormat anymore.

Even if he was months getting back even understanding words, just to have a little communication in both directions... for Loki to understand they would _listen_ once he did have something to say...

Besides, everyone said Loki had a scientific mind and the idea of a scientist or engineer _not being able to ask even a simple question with a simple answer_ chilled Tony right down to the bone.

Others had wanted Loki to remember things he already knew. Tony thought he'd be miserable if he remembered fully but then couldn't find out things he'd never known before.

"Shot glasses? Really?" Steve asked with a fair bit of complaint himself.

"They were the smallest containers in the kitchen that were clean and suited to the purpose."

Loki was wide awake now, alert.

"Hey, Loki. So I hear you're asking _questions_ now," Tony joked a little at him, trying to lighten up the situation.

He got a glare from Steve for his trouble, but the way Loki relaxed where he lay on the bed -- _damn, Steve doesn't know how to get him upright with the bed controls_ \-- made it worth it.

"Just let me get you up a little. Steve, if you'll help him sit a bit, I think I can make him a little more comfortable."

He only managed about a two foot rise, not nearly enough to get Loki sitting up, thanks to the restraints. And Loki looked confused as hell while they were doing it. But then he seemed honestly appreciative once he realized he wasn't absolutely _flat_ on his back anymore.

"Yeah, that's better. So, you want to know what's in that bag?" Tony asked with a deliberate finger-point towards the slowly dripping bag in question.

Loki made a noise that was absolutely questioning and nodded toward the bag.

"And this is why the shot glasses, Steve. Everything in that bag? Can also be found in every kitchen in America in some form or other. The world too. Things that are essential to life are essential to life. And therefore..."

"We don't need words to explain it to him."

"Exactly." He dipped one of his fingers into the sugar at the bottom of one of the shot glasses and got it close to Loki's face.

Which didn't work.

So Steve had to get Loki's head pinned and _then_ Tony tried again.

Which didn't work.

So finally he just shoved it into Loki's slightly open mouth and trusted he'd be getting his index finger back.

Loki's eyes shot up to his after Tony reclaimed his hand.

"I think he got the idea, Steve." He held up three fingers in front of Loki's face. "Three ingredients in _that_ ," he explained with a finger point. "What I just gave you." He repeated the process with the salt. "And that too." And then he let Loki drink the water to wash out his mouth, because salt straight from the shaker was not one of nature's best taste sensations. "And finally that."

Steve let go of Loki with a quick 'no damage meant, wish I didn't need to do it' squeeze of his shoulder.

Loki looked at the shot glasses. He gave a little tug at his right hand again.

"He knows not to tug the IV out?"

"He hasn't been complaining about it."

Tony undid the binding on his right wrist entirely. "There you go. We were just trying to keep you safe."

Loki pointed at the three glasses, one at a time, and then up at the bag.

Tony nodded. "Nothing else. Just them." He held up his empty hands for emphasis.

A look came across Loki's face that could only be translated as "Well, that's all right, then."

And then, seemingly at the same time, they all realized what had just happened.

Steve tousled Loki's hair, something he did not seem to appreciate even shocked and frightened as he was, and Tony let out a whoop of celebration that he seemed to appreciate even less.

"Has he ever had a milkshake?" Tony asked.

"No." Steve looked confused. "And Thor told us Asgardians universally prefer warm food to chilled."

"Only he's just _culturally_ Asgardian. Biologically he belongs to an ice world. And JARVIS said he's been taking cold-water-only showers ever since we showed him how to." Tony got up. "I'm going to go get him a milkshake. A man who's just figured out he can ask questions ought to have a treat."

"What flavor are you going to get him?"

"Vanilla for victory, of course."

"Not quinine for questions?"

"There's a reason they don't make that, Steve. But he could have chocolate for curiosity."

"Peach for _preguntas_?"

"Well, if you want to branch out to other languages..."

Loki stared at them confusedly, and then when he'd gotten their attention he quite deliberatively closed his eyes and acted as though he were asleep.

Only his breathing didn't slow. If anything, it quickened.

And then Tony remembered what Pepper had said one night...

"Strawberry for success. And because it's his favorite Midgardian fruit. Or at least Pepper thinks it is."

"Go get the man his milkshake, already," Steve laughed.

* * *

Bruce and Tony both came in some time later with the promised milkshake from Tony's favored nearest fast food chain.

Which was also the same chain they'd kept going to as they drove cross-country with Loki, Steve had only been slightly surprised to find out.

The same food no matter where you went, and for someone who did as much traveling as Tony and liked the world predictable...

_Good luck with that predictable world,_ he thought.

And Tony's flavor suggestions did make sense now, if he'd been planning on going someplace that _only_ sold strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate instead of the full range a proper ice cream parlor could offer.

One small cup of milkshake. One spoon. No straw.

Bruce noticed Steve looking. "We figured sucking on a straw was a bit too much active involvement to ask him to do."

"And given what we know of the rules they had for him... he'll probably consider high-value food offered for active consumption a baited trap, not a treat," Tony added. "So why put him under the stress when it's meant as a reward?"

Loki was looking at them with a vague sort of interest, but he seemed more interested in Bruce than in the cup Tony was carrying.

And then he settled into a strange kind of uneasy when they got over to his bed.

"So, you're feeling better," Bruce said lightly.

Still uneasy.

Bruce seemed ready to join in, but then a look crossed his face. "Oh. Yes, that is a strange situation for you to be in."

He got Loki's other hand free with a grumbled, "You should have undone them both when it was safe to undo one."

A moment later, he had Loki in a firm hug that was quickly and fervently returned.

"He understood enough to be scared," Bruce explained. "So he knows enough to know I saved him. _But_ he also remembers enough to know surprising me can get him hurt. If I start the hug, then it can't surprise me, can it?"

After a moment, he let Loki lie down again.

"I think he does better with you, Steve," Bruce offered.

Loki didn't fight Steve holding him close, and pinning his head this time only seemed to make him curious. Or, rather, _more_ curious.

And then Tony got the spoon in his mouth.

A split-second of balking, probably from the unexpected cold.

Stillness.

And then Tony couldn't get the spoon back.

"Loki, how am I supposed to feed you the rest of this if you won't let me have the spoon back?" Tony sighed and finally tilted the cup so Loki could see the rest of the contents.

Loki's mouth dropped open.

And then came the little, so daring Loki braced himself against Steve before he did it, whine of complaint.

"What..." Bruce started to ask.

"They use the same cups for sodas," Steve offered as Tony stuck the spoon in the cup and put his newly-free hand over his face.

"He thinks we were having milkshakes ourselves but giving him water all the way from New Mexico," Tony groaned.

Loki's mouth drifted open again and it was the first time Steve had seen his tongue-tip drift forward past his teeth while he was being fed.

Tony picked up the spoon again. "All right, all right, there's more where that came from."


	21. Chapter 21

Thor didn't have a chance to talk to Sif that morning.

Around mid-afternoon, a guard came in and announced that his father had awakened and requested his presence in the royal quarters.

Thor obeyed gladly.

_Just a few more hours, at the most, and I can be there checking on Loki._

He'd be there for the night, surely. Early enough he wouldn't have to wake Loki up to let him know he was there.

But when he got there, Odin and Frigga were pulling traveling clothes on.

"Father? You asked for me?"

"Yes, Thor."

"I hope it isn't too much to ask of you, but we haven't seen him since you two left and it _is_ the anniversary of your brother's adoption tomorrow," Frigga told him.

"Which means I hold Asgard for you until your return, Father?" Thor said while trying to keep tears out of his eyes and voice.

"Only until midday tomorrow," Odin assured him. "And then you can have the rest of the day with him and stay."

"How long have you been planning this?"

"We'd considered it before you got here," Frigga admitted. "But..."

"His condition has changed a bit since you left," Odin finished. "I feel the need to check in on him personally."

Thor blinked a moment. "He had the breakthrough?"

Odin nodded. "So it seems."

"Without me there."

"Yes," was the simple reply.

"Thor, you can't be there for him forever," Frigga reminded him. "You have obligations here that he no longer shares in. What would you have done, had it been safe for both of you to return, bring him with you and leave him sat somewhere in the throne room, lest you miss something?"

"...I don't know. I'd have probably left him with you, Mother."

"He's bathed alone, since he was aware enough to manage it," Odin added. "And from what you've told us and what I observed in the days before you two fled to safer lodgings, I believe some of his continuing difficulties are tied up in fear of making decisions and being punished for them. When he begins to work through that, he will be a greatly different person. One who will _need_ independence."

Thor shook his head. "Dr. Strange said..."

"That your brother will always be dependent on others. And as a member of the royal family now unfit for the throne, not even a complete recovery would ever truly grant him that." Frigga smiled grimly. "You've always been protective of him, Thor, ever since the moment you first met each other. And you were still both _babies_ then."

Something snagged in Thor's thoughts. "Wait. There's something... I think he made them think he was an exiled king, _not_ a second prince."

Odin seemed impressed. "Given their level of access to his mind, that's quite the feat. He would have needed to bury quite a lot of his true self to pull it off."

"But why would he feel the need?" Frigga pondered.

"He invaded Midgard. Tony Stark believes the invasion point was a choice of vanity -- a high place in a great city -- because many could see it."

There was shock and pride in Odin's eyes. "He made his enemies stand in the open, on a world he knew had strong allies."

"Midgard could have fallen."

"No," Odin assured his wife. "Certainly either Thor or I could have been expected to take an interest in any attack there from outside, just as I did when the Jotun attacked them a thousand years ago, even if Loki's involvement was not apparent to us."

"Which means he was trying to get us to him, Mother."

"Less to him, more to them, I think." Odin sighed. "Perhaps he may recover enough to tell us."

"But why would he need to lie about his rank in the royal family?" Frigga asked, clearly confused.

"He's a second prince," Odin told her. "And young. That is not a description that goes with leadership experience at war. Not the sort I have, not the sort Thor has."

"Not the sort needed for a full planetary invasion," Thor finished. "He had to make them think he wasn't going to be in over his head." He sighed. "We fought, hand to hand, in the middle of the battle. I made him look at what the army he led had wrought. He seemed surprised, perhaps a little disturbed. I thought, after, that he'd come out from under their control a bit. But with this..." He trailed off.

Odin rested a firm arm around his shoulders and finished for him. "Perhaps Loki never thought it would work that far, when he was setting it up. Perhaps whatever of himself he forced down to survive woke up enough to be aware of what had happened." A quick squeeze. "You have done well, my son. I am sure you can handle another day and then return to your responsibility toward your brother."

* * *

Tony was still coding the basic user interface for Loki's device when Loki made a complaint noise.

Steve checked if he'd take food or water -- even with the glucose drip, he might well want to drink something -- and while Loki dutifully allowed it he was still making complaint noises and it was clear those needs were not what he was vocalizing about.

They gave him a blanket, not knowing how his shapeshifting might have affected his biology. They took it and more away, in case he'd gotten too warm or had always been too warm and only know found his voice to object.

Loki just kept getting louder, more insistent, and more frustrated.

The intercom light blinked and there was a distinctive blink.

Tony put the equipment he was fiddling with down and walked over. "What's going on, JARVIS?"

"Pardon, sir, but Agent Coulson has called to confirm they are on their way."

"Good. Maybe Natasha can figure Loki out."

"He says Lord Odin and Lady Frigga are with them."

"Even better. If his mother can't figure him out, no one can. How far away are they?"

"Fifteen to thirty minutes, arriving by helicopter. And the hole Loki left upstairs is securely covered and not recognizable for what it is, sir."

"Good. Thank you, JARVIS." Tony walked back over to the others. "Looks like someone's getting a parental visit tonight," he joked to Loki.

Another complaint.

"Here's hoping his mother can figure him out," Bruce said grimly.

"My thoughts exactly," Tony told him.

* * *

Sif and the Warriors Three were trying to keep him occupied again.

Thor could barely tolerate it.

"I should be there for him."

"He needs to know where he stands with Lord Odin," Hogun reasoned quietly.

Thor shook his head. "After the weeks Father worried over him while his mind was gone?"

"Thor, we don't have any idea how much of those days Loki is capable of remembering," Fandral reminded him.

"And even if he does remember, with his own skill at duplicity..." Volstagg paused, as if reconsidering his words. "Your father has never been fond of punishing anyone for acts they could not remember. Loki might well presume that was the case for him."

"They let him sleep between them until he had to leave!"

"Which could just as easily have been to keep him in place during the night," Sif explained with no small amount of exasperation. "My parents knew that trick, when I was small."

"And who knows what he's remembered since," Fandral reminded them all. "What if he has remembered he's adopted, where he came from? What then? Best if your parents are there to remind him he's part of a family."

Thor nodded his reluctant acceptance. Then, he remembered his mother's words and took heed of them.

"Sif, my mother advised that I should ask you for a look at the children's books my father told you to keep as evidence to yourself."

Grim looks all around.

"Why did she advise this?" she asked.

"She gave me the books Loki and I grew up with, and the way the frost giants were first presented to Loki troubled me," he admitted. "She told me that was mild, and to ask you to show me the books you had at the same age."

Sif nodded. "If you order me, I will show you."

"I so order."

She gave a little formal bow and walked off.

* * *

Loki complained again, the loudest time yet, but it was cut short halfway through.

There was a shocked look on his face, followed by horror, followed by shame.

Steve cursed.

"But he just went," Tony complained when the first distinctive whiff of odor hit his nose.

"I'll say he did," Bruce joked.

Loki put the pillow over his face, lightly enough for Tony to be sure it was nothing more than a hiding gesture.

Steve put hand on Loki's shoulder. "We didn't know. I wouldn't have gotten you to drink water if I'd known."

Tony joined in the cursing. "And now how is he going to trust us the next time? _I_ wouldn't trust us the next time!"

Loki was shaking, and Tony couldn't tell if it was from helplessness that this had happened, shame that this had happened, or fear of what they'd do to him now that this had happened.

"Easy way we get him to trust us," Bruce said calmly as he started pulling the things they'd need to remake the bed and clean Loki up out.

"How? We can't just say, 'Hey Loki, trust us, we _swear_ we didn't mean to make your bathroom needs more urgent' to him."

"We were acting confused, trying the solutions we thought of, and when you get that communications device put together he'll know we _want_ him to communicate with us.

Steve lifted the pillow off of Loki's face just enough to peek under it. "You're okay," he said gently. "We aren't going to blame you for this. It was our fault for not understanding you. And if you hadn't tried to tell us, it still wouldn't have been your fault."

Loki didn't seem to react, but then Tony couldn't even see his face.

The intercom buzzed again.

Bruce answered this time, and Tony found himself wishing they dared use the primary in-house communication system instead of the dummy secondary system for outsiders. "Hello... Ah, you're here... Well, we have a bit of a situation here... No, nothing to worry about, not by now... Yes, I'll explain everything later, Phil. The Asgardians are with you? ... Great. Can I speak with Frigga for a moment? ... Good afternoon, Lady... He's doing better than he was. We need a little immediate advice about him... He's recovered just enough to communicate when he needs someone to lead him to the bathroom -- he just did it for the first time a little while ago -- and we missed understanding what he was trying to tell us. Would it be more mortifying to him for us to clean him up and have him think you don't know what happened, or for you to help clean him up?"

The words were audible across the room. "I'm coming there right now."

Loki made a distressed noise. Steve patted his shoulder.

Phil's voice again, too quiet to understand.

"We... aren't upstairs," Bruce told him very calmly. A pause. "The infirmary. It's a long story. Yes, everyone's out of danger right now, nothing to worry about."


	22. Chapter 22

Frigga didn't like what she saw when she got to the Infirmary.

Loki - her little Loki - was lying curled up in his side, one hand lightly holding a pillow against the side of his head while three human men looked on.

One of them seemed to be talking to him.

What followed was a rushed conversation between the other two men, Odin, and the Midgardians who had brought them there, which involved shouting at several points -- not all of it from Odin.

She was too busy rushing towards Loki to pay it much mind, but she did get the distinct idea that Loki had gotten too depressed to bear eating, had skipped meals the way he'd tried to when he was younger and sulking, and that there had been some medical consequences when they let him get away with it.

Which, the men claimed, seemed to have been the right choice since so far as they could tell he'd broken through it and was doing better than he had before.

Frigga suspected they might be right, if he'd actually found a way to express a need and felt safe enough to use it.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm here, Loki," she told him.

The bag and tube were evidence of how bad it must have been. But then, Midgard had no healing stones.

And, she well knew, healing stones did nothing to nourish a body. If that had been the extent of the medical risks, Loki would have been facing very nearly the same at home in Asgard.

Only in his own bedroom in the royal quarters, or in theirs if his condition had been dire enough to warrant such attention. Not in a separate facility like this.

Loki trembled a little under her hand.

She knelt a little on the side of the bed he was facing, the human who had been tending him moving to give her room with a respectful nod. She lifted the pillow a little bit.

Loki's eyes met hers, then looked away.

She didn't like what she saw there. It was more than simple embarrassment -- Loki'd had enough close scrapes and actual disasters in his youth for her to know what _that_ looked like.

_He's only a thousand,_ Frigga reminded herself. _Still not much more than a boy. Still young enough for this to feel shameful, rather than being something that came from an injury in respectable battle._

"It's me, dear one," she told him.

He kept looking off at something, and Frigga'd spent enough hours with him when he was the closest waking thing to comatose to automatically turn her head and follow his gaze.

He was staring at the man's pants, which were an odd shade of blue with the dye worn out of them in places.

_Blue._

She closed her eyes.

_Oh, Loki. You know._

She turned back to him, put a hand on his cheek, and managed a cheery voice. "We need to get you cleaned up, and then everything will be better, all right?"

He met her eyes again, uneasily.

_Oh, if only you'd gotten language back, too..._

She'd just have to do as he'd asked her that horrible day and take care of him. And hope that was enough for him to understand she still considered herself a proper mother to him, however incredibly unrelated they actually were.

It took but a few moments for the humans to get whatever monitoring device they had looking after him detached and fiddle with the tube going into his hand so that the entire contraption wouldn't have to be pulled into the bathing room with him.

"It's just a glucose drip," one of them told her. "It won't harm him to not have it for a little while, and since he managed eating something a while ago it's really more there to _speed_ his recovery right now than anything else."

And then it was really just a matter of letting Odin take her traveling cloak from her and carrying her son into the little attached bathing room.

She could hear Odin chuckling at something behind her. "Did you think our women were not strong?"

She smiled herself, imagining the looks on their faces. It would be an easy mistake for them to make, if their women were all as slight as the pilot who'd flown them in and Natasha were. _Oh, if you humans could just meet Lady Sif for a few minutes..._

* * *

Thor flipped the pages with growing anger. "You grew up with these?"

Sif nodded. "We were at war, and what chance was there that a good obedient daughter would be involved in a peace treaty or diplomacy? Much less facing them as the enemies they then were on a field of battle?" The bitterness was thick in her voice.

The illustrations held little resemblance to real Jotun.

Sickly blue skin. Scarifications roughly done and badly healed. The natural ridge designs in their skin uneven, drawn as though whatever god designed them had been deep in his cups at the time. Misshapen bodies and faces. Glowing red eyes.

For all the bias in the words the princes had grown up listening to and then reading on their own, the art on the pages had at least _tried_ to match reality.

And the words...

"Thor..."

"And they were still giving you things like this even as you began associating with us? Even as they knew what Loki was genetically, where he came from?"

Sif nodded.

"It was not so bad for us, nor so intentional, but it was still there," Hogun quietly added.

"And if his shapeshifting had failed him in battle..."

"I would have presumed we were dealing with an impostor and reacted accordingly," Sif told him bluntly.

Volstagg and Fandral nodded.

"I saw," Hogun admitted, and it was clear to Thor that his friend had no idea Odin and Frigga had already passed that along. "The shock to him was proof enough to me that he did not know. Had it been less jarring to him, things could have gone differently on Jotunheim."

Thor handed the book back to Sif. "Best that be kept as evidence of how our people once thought, hidden away where the young cannot stumble upon it."

She nodded. "So Lord Odin thought as well." She seemed to think for a moment. "Thor?"

"Yes?"

"I wasn't able to see Loki before you and he fled Asgard. I was wondering if it might be a good idea for me to come see him sometime. Even if only just long enough for him to know I'm still around. He won't know anything that's happened here until he can understand speech again, not anything that happened since he fell."

Thor would have preferred to not be reminded of that day, but he nodded anyway.

"If he manages to remember things from when he reacted to nothing, he knows these three" -- she gestured to indicate the Warriors Three -- "are all right. But he hasn't seen a sign of me, and the last thing that happened before he left..."

"He will not know that he did not start a war," Fandral finished for her.

"And he will know our Lady Sif would stand and fight for her realm in such times," Hogun added.

Thor thought for a moment. "I don't know how much he understands now, but later, when it's clear he would recognize you, maybe an excuse could be found? Perhaps for all of you, once he's fit for and wants visitors?"

"You brother's always been a loner at heart," Volstagg reminded him.

"Not that much of a loner," Fandral laughed. "A large crowd at a feast, he'll try to avoid. Four friends hovering over him in worry, focused entirely on him? Can you imagine the look on his face?"

They all laughed together for the first time in a long time.

They spent the rest of the afternoon finding removable ways to cover up the offensive pages in the Odinsons' old books, because while Frigga was right that Loki would need to relearn such bias existed that didn't mean it had to happen right while he was still just starting to figure out language again, did it?

* * *

Loki had his sense of modesty back, and Frigga was glad of it.

It meant she could set him down inside the tub and apart from collecting the clothing he passed her from behind the flimsy curtain the humans used for privacy, she didn't have to do much of anything.

He was well enough to sit upright on his own, just not to walk yet, and that was more than enough for this.

The room grew cold, and it took a moment for Frigga to realize it was from the water Loki was using. And then, after a moment's thought, she understood. _This_ Loki knew what he was, and might not have a millennium's remembered training of what bathwater ought to feel like. And wasn't this Midgardian contraption not entirely unlike bathing under a waterfall, and hadn't she been overhearing complaints about Loki's love of meltwater while questing for several centuries now from Thor?

So, Loki was figuring out how to live as what he really was, a man with a foot in two realms, at last.

And no matter how much knowing seemed to have made him ill at ease, at least figuring out who he was now around his biological heritage would mean not having to recreate himself again later after learning it anew.

After a little while, he made a questioning little noise and scooted himself around a bit so his back was facing her just beyond the curtain's edge.

She took the hint and helped him with that odd little place between the shoulders that hardly any social species could ever reach on its own.

And then, when she was taking the opportunity to make sure the back of his neck and behind his ears were clean, she realized from the feel of his hair that whatever soap Midgard used for bodies was entirely unsuited to hair.

Which meant a different kind of soap, one they obviously hadn't successfully taught Loki about, had to be around here somewhere.

It was a matter of finding the bottle of shampoo -- she promptly considered it a mark of the woeful state of Midgardian civilization that soap, shampoo, and conditioner were three separate things and not just one thing you could lather all of you in and pay the process no mind in the bath -- reading the label to be absolutely sure the Midgardians made such things to work as more civilized realms would, and then carefully carrying out the steps while making sure Loki understood how much she was using and what she was doing.

He was nearly as observant as he had ever been, and it was a relief to her that there was no wariness to it. At least for now.

They managed to get him dried and dressed without too much further damage to his modesty.

She carried him back out.

Odin was waiting for them, and now Loki wouldn't meet _his_ eyes. In fact, he was trying to bow his head...

"Ah. You do remember things now." Odin reached out and gently forced Loki's chin up in a manner Frigga had seen before.

There were certain offenses against the crown -- usually claiming it, or a right to it -- that had a particular ritual afterward if the offender intended to seek forgiveness. And while it might not fit the form, it couldn't have anyway, not with Loki nonverbal and uncomprehending.

And after that, Loki relaxed a bit.

"He's stable and recovered enough he could probably be brought back to the bedroom he and Thor have been sharing," one of the human men offered. "We've set and maintained IV lines there before without any problems, right?"

And that's just what they did.

While the humans were hooking the tube back up, Odin and Frigga shared a quiet word.

"I wonder what could have driven him so emotionally low so fast, and then have so swift a recovery," Frigga mused. "There is unease in him now, but nothing that would drive the appetite from either of our boys. I think he knows what he is, but then why the quick recovery? And I know it did not drive the hunger from him the first time."

"Perhaps the fact there are so many things he could have remembered that might have caused this says enough on its own," Odin replied soberly.

And then, they finally had a moment together as a family, the three of them, alone.


	23. Chapter 23

"You _let him_ not eat?" Phil asked for the tenth time.

"Yes," Tony answered back, already past annoyed. "For one single day, at his own insistence, and ready to intervene the next morning even if it hadn't been enough to make him sick already."

"Dr. Strange told us that most of the interventions possible would have potential psychological consequences for him," Bruce stated evenly. "I wasn't willing to risk that for something as simple as stubbornness over a meal, not when we're trying to train him _out_ of compliance. And besides, I'm the only one around here with enough medical training to even try, and we can't afford him getting scared of me again. As it was, I didn't dare do anything more invasive than an IV, not with him unconscious. Not when we don't know anything about his internal biology. Or how stable it is, now that he can shapeshift again."

"Not consciously," Natasha reminded him.

"Unconsciously's bad enough," Steve reminded her back. "We don't know what he's instinctively capable of when he feels threatened. Keeping him uneasy might not be the only reason he was locked in form."

"And we don't know the details about what that locked form's differences from how his body is normally were," Tony added. "Changing himself _back_ at an age where he can remember what he did and how it felt may make him more capable of conscious shifting than Thor thinks he is."

"And here you were the skeptic," Clint jibed lightly.

"I've seen him shift. If he can make himself look like a species that evolved in a different ecology than the one he was born to, I don't want to find out what else he's capable of. Especially not in a way that can hurt him."

"And there's something else. Something we need to not tell Odin if we can help it and shouldn't let Frigga find out about."

Phil, Natasha, and Clint all stared at Bruce.

"I had his hands bound, just to keep him from pulling out the IV. One was bound near to his waist because I thought that would be a more natural position that might not bother him as much."

"I was sitting with him when he woke up, and he reacted badly and swiftly to it the moment he couldn't raise his hand further up on his body."

Natasha cursed. "That night we stayed with him, when he had the breakthrough..."

"I held his hand and didn't have to work to get him to let me because he was already settling in to sleep with both hands near his face. Which probably means something happened and we have no clue what."

"So what do we do now?" Phil asked.

Natasha answered. "We treat him like someone with unknown triggers, like we've been doing. And I go talk to Frigga later."

"We just said she shouldn't find out," Steve reminded her.

"Right. But I can tell her about me, woman to woman, and figure out what Thor's views of _me_ are likely to be. My background isn't a secret among SHIELD agents now, Steve. It's only a matter of time until the Asgardians find out anyway. And if I should try to figure out what they think of attacked _men_..."

"You can mention you're just trying to figure out what Thor's reaction should he find out a male human had been a victim. Without mentioning who," Steve stressed.

Natasha nodded grimly. "Without mentioning who."

* * *

Loki felt very uneasy as he lay there with his head propped up a bit and a parent to either side.

He didn't understand what was going on.

First Odin and Frigga appeared out of nowhere at the most embarrassing time possible - not that it was his place to get embarrassed about anything someone else did to him. Where was Thor, why had they come?

And then once Frigga had helped him get cleaned up - and it was clear she was still the same motherly Mother she had always been, at least one thing that made absolute sense - they'd brought him back up here and put him in Thor's bed.

Only no Thor. And he still had a tube sticking out of his hand.

The other place had made sense. He had the strap on his wrist to tell him where he was supposed to be - and when that went away the rails on the bed made the same point with less force. He knew they'd let him get himself into trouble, but also that they would save him from it once it got scary.

And Tony Stark had even let him know what was being dripped into him and didn't do anything to him for asking. None of them had done anything to him for asking and when he'd tested his luck and pointed out that he really needed the bathroom soon...

They hadn't punished him, just tried to figure out what he wanted, and when he hadn't been able to hold any longer they hadn't punished him for that either.

They hadn't even given him the exasperated look he could vaguely remember Frigga giving him when he was little - it must have been one of the last times he accidentally wet the bed as a child.

It wasn't the way _they_ had taught him the world was supposed to be. He hadn't done anything to earn any sort of privilege at all. But it was becoming relatively predictable, and the top prediction he could make was that they would not hurt him.

At least not so long as he behaved himself and with no orders from _them_ and no assurance he could even receive orders anymore, that was doable.

This...

He still didn't know if this was meant as a soft prison or not, and if it was it would be a bad thing to let on that he was improving only he'd already given Frigga evidence that he had so there went that anyway. And if it wasn't there was still the question of just how Odin saw him now...

And where was Thor? Had they collected him to take him back to Asgard? He liked this place, at least right now, but then it wasn't his place to express a preference.

The frustrated questioning sound was past his throat before he realized he was making it.

Both of them looked at him with what must have been concern.

Or a search for the clarification he could not provide.

He tried for the first time to say something, desperate to break the anxious hell he was in, but nothing came out, not even garble.

Not even a squeak.

The same constriction that forced what questions came out higher than his voice had ever been kept all the words in.

Frigga stroked back his hair as she and Odin conversed seriously for a moment.

And then Odin, as serious as Loki had ever seen him to the point it was scary but without more than a touch of anger, slipped one hand under his back and the other under his neck and lifted just enough to take most of Loki's weight on his arms.

Then, Odin spoke.

Loki couldn't make out the words, but he knew the pattern well enough. He had no memory of Odin saying the familiar construction, but he'd witnessed it often enough in court over the centuries that the connection came easily and he knew _exactly_ what Odin's words were.

"I, Odin Borson, take this child as a son to me."

He did not revisit the also-familiar patterns of the full naming ceremony and that would have been inappropriate for an adult's adoption - or re-adoption - anyway.

It took a moment to think through the implications.

That Odin had made space for Loki in his own bed during the worst early days had its own implications. What made this different?

And then Loki got it.

Odin didn't need to go through the ceremony to acknowledge the familial relationship remained that he had established with whoever Loki had been before _them_.

But it wasn't a ceremony he would have gone through with a son who was being punished.

This was not a soft prison, no matter what being here was really meant as. And not only was it not a soft prison, but Loki had to be in fairly favorable position at the moment.

He gave a little questioning chirp, meant as 'Did you mean that?' after Odin let him settle back onto the bed and pillows.

That earned him another concerned look, followed by some inter-parental discussion he couldn't begin to understand, followed by Odin easing down next to him and holding him close.

Which was as good as a 'yes'.

And then he recognized that there were two forms of the ceremony. One for adoptions of infants, and another used for older children - or adults, sometimes, when there was need - who already had names. And Odin had used the infant form.

Which implied some things, including a lack of immediate parental expectations and an understanding the adopted person was going to need a lot of support for a long time.

That was when he went from vaguely feeling like he was nearing the edge of tears to flat-out bawling into Odin's beard.

Strong arms held him close and someone's hand patted his back.

And when he'd calmed down a bit, something else hit him.

This scene was never going to repeat with Loki in a different role.

Even if he recovered from whatever had happened as much as was possible - and given how he'd spoken when with Farbauti and Laufrey in whatever place that had been, he wasn't holding much hope of that - for the first he was biologically incompatible with any woman he had so much as a vague interest in and for the second he was likely to never be sound enough to be in true authority over anyone much less a child as helpless as he himself was now.

There were certain to be Thorsons in Asgard within the next millennium - their people wouldn't let Thor get away with that even if it meant him adopting young adults as a single father.

But there wasn't ever going to be anyone using the name Lokison.

It was something Loki knew implicitly he'd never had to think of before _them_ , and _their_ imposed rule meant such things worked differently. But now, with _them_ silent and knowing the damage...

Something that had been a core assumption of his youth - there would one day be a woman he'd wed and there would be first-cousins called Lokison and Lokisdottir for the Thorson heir and his siblings to practice weaponry with and go on quests with and hopefully listen to him on strategy with... and then drive Thor crazy together after he gave them a few subtle hints here and there of just what would push him in all the right places.

And now, that simply wasn't going to happen.

Even if/when he got home and years went on and Thor settled down to the responsibilities of the royal heir or perhaps by then king, he wasn't going to be anything more than strange, damaged Uncle Loki.

One of Grandmother Bestla's older brothers had lived just long enough for Loki to vaguely remember, now that he was thinking about it, being ordered to keep him company at feasts after his mind began to flee from sheer age and he had started smelling funny.

Spending the rest of his life at feasts as Great-Uncle Geirr was a lot less attractive than the memories he had of lurking at the edges, trying to catch the eye of...

He couldn't remember her name.

He could remember everything else about her, but not her name.

Not that it really mattered, there was no hope for her notice now and none back then before _them_ either because what Asgardian would want to court a Jotun no matter his rank and yes he would have been honest when a relationship turned serious because he couldn't have stood not being himself in him own rooms and...

The tears welled up again as hard as ever.

When Odin said something that sounded like a question, all he could think to do was trace a chevron on the back of his hand, where the marking would have been if he'd grown up on Jotunheim, just so he could let them know that yes, where he came from was part of it.

They kept him company while he wept, and twice Bruce Banner came through to change the drip bag on the pole for a new one. The first time, Loki tried to be as still and quiet as he could, but then Bruce nudged his shoulder to get Loki's attention, shook his head, and made just enough hand signals that Loki figured out Bruce was telling him not to worry about it, his emotional outburst wasn't about to trigger anything from Bruce.

Loki didn't exactly trust it, but with Odin there he felt just safe enough to stand following the request to not react when Bruce came back the second time.


	24. Chapter 24

Frigga had to smile at the curious look on Loki's face after he had sniffed his tears dry.

He made a questioning noise that still had a tearful sound to it.

"I think he wants to know why we're here, Dear," she chuckled.

"How can we explain the concept of an anniversary to him?" Odin asked her.

"I wonder..." She raised her hands in a manner nod entirely unlike what Odin had just done, only without anything actually being lifted.

Loki's eyes brightened.

"No, my little Loki, we didn't travel all this way to reclaim you again." Frigga shook her head and kissed his forehead before trying to sign the concept of something moving backwards in even steps.

After a bit of thought that wrinkled his forehead up, Loki started looking intently all over the place, including trying to look behind them and at all the places they had pockets.

"What do you think he's doing?" Odin wondered out loud.

Frigga laughed. "Looking for his present, of course! We only gave both of them a Naming Day present every year even when it wasn't one of the years everyone usually celebrates."

Which was true. Most Asgardians didn't celebrate all their Naming Days, just decades on up. However, they were the royal family, after all, and they had figured out early on that their boys tended to be slightly less destructive of things they would have been given anyway if they were framed as Naming Day presents instead.

So even though this wasn't a round-number year (and Loki might not even remember exactly how old he was anyway, given the state of his mind and how long he'd been separated from anyone else who cared at all about the Asgardian calendar), Loki had a reason to look for a present.

Frigga mimed the sun overhead, then the progression of a day and a night and a day again to the same high noon. _One day, my son. One day, with us, while you're here._

Loki looked for a moment like he didn't know what to think about that.

They both looked at him with concern.

He should have understood, shouldn't he? An anniversary was a harder concept than a simple noon-to-noon day, wasn't it?

And he gave a little absent-minded half nod and snuggled close against Odin again.

Odin laughed. A moment later, he commented seriously, "It never ceases to amaze me just how deeply he's always trusted me. From the moment I first picked him up."

Frigga sighed. "Maybe that's what made finding out about his parentage and watching you banish Thor so hard on him. You never let either of them know at the time that the banishment was temporary. He thought you would always act one way towards him, and suddenly..."

"That wasn't the world he was living in any more." He held Loki a little closer. "It can be different this time."

"I think it has to be," she told him before snuggling up to both of them.

* * *

Dinner was some sort of Midgardian 'fast food'.

It had been quite amusing to Frigga to watch the debate over it between their host and his obvious love interest. She insisted it wasn't good enough for royalty, much less off-realm royalty, and he heavily implied that this was what Loki had been fed during the long journey between the old Bifrost site and this city.

Once they'd overheard that argument, she and Odin had simply had to insist that if it had been good enough to feed their sons, they might as well try it too.

And Frigga had quietly reminded the Midgardian woman - Pepper, and with that fire in her eyes and voice and hair Frigga found it no surprise that she was named for a spice - that they were used to eating quite primitively while on Earth, so anything better than early Norse fire-pit cooking would be acceptable.

Frigga pitied her in a way - she'd rushed back to the tower on news of their arrival, only to find a situation she clearly viewed as unacceptable waiting on her with no time to 'fix' it.

Given the way Loki's face lit up when the smell wafted into the room, it was clearly a far better meal than Pepper thought. And he was, thank goodness, up to eating again.

It was messy food even when they were the ones eating - and it became even messier when Loki was the one being fed - but it was tasty and good to talk and laugh over.

And there was much talking that needed to be done, about both their boys.

"How has he been taking Thor's absence?" Frigga asked the humans.

"We think that's what caused it all," Natasha told her. "The first breakthrough hit the first night Thor was away."

"How could that be?" Odin asked with an air that hinted to Frigga that he knew their answer but thought it best she hear it from them.

It wasn't an unfamiliar ploy, not this close to the Odinsleep.

"While Thor was here, he was just another piece of the universe," Tony explained with a gesture of a 'French fry'. "No questions needed. He was just there, and he mattered. But once he went away..."

"... Loki may have started asking himself why being handed off to us bothered him." Bruce paused to drink before he continued. "And it did bother him - he was very uneasy that day, at least compared to how he had been."

"And then his subconscious mind got to work on it while he slept," Steve continued, "and the next thing I knew he was up in the middle of the night, sick."

"We won't know for sure until Dr. Strange visits again or Loki starts talking, but we think the things he was remembering made him sick to his stomach," Natasha explained. "Or recognizing how he'd been acting compared to who he used to be caused it. Either way, Steve and I stayed with him the rest of the night, trading off who was awake."

"He woke up a few more times, but he hasn't had another breakthrough hit him like the first one did," Steve told them.

"And there's a household AI he doesn't know about yet," Tony added. "If he gets in trouble or distress when one of us isn't around, one of us can 'happen' upon him within a few minutes, maximum. Given what he's been through, we all figured not letting him know he's being constantly observed was a good thing."

"And this includes observing us?" Odin asked.

"Not entirely," the man named Phil who seemed to be the highest-ranked of the humans present answered. "We've asked JARVIS - the AI - not to record audio while you are away from any of us, in recognition of your realm and family's security concerns. If you call for help he'll still summon us, and if Loki begins acting distressed we'll also be notified."

"We're used to not discussing sensitive matters out-of-realm," Frigga replied.

"And right now... if a few family secrets become known to the people who Loki is going to be living with for the foreseeable future..." Odin began.

"The worst of it was his genetic heritage and that's out in the open anyway," she finished for him. "Better if the people around him and Thor understand the family situation they grew up in."

Dessert after they had finished and Loki had been fed as well was cold, colder than anything Asgardian cooking ever favored. Tony called them 'milkshakes' and the look on Loki's face when they were brought out was... well, it seemed they ought to have kept cold treats around when he was younger.

Lesson learned.

* * *

That night was a breakthrough night.

Loki rarely slept longer than thirty minutes at a time before he woke, keening.

All Frigga could do was hold him close while Odin rubbed his back and hope he could calm down again soon.

The humans offered what support they could, but when his parents could do so little, what could people who until recently were strangers do?

Bruce Banner kept the drip going through the night so the crying wouldn't be a danger to Loki's health.

Sometime near dawn, when Phil Coulson and Tony Stark were taking a turn checking in on them, Frigga quietly told them and Odin, "I think I need to stay a few more days. Thor wouldn't be able to handle this. Not alone."

"Dr. Strange called an hour ago," Phil told her. "He'll come in the morning. We'll know more then. Hopefully he can tell us if this is going to happen again."

"I have nothing against you staying, Lady Frigga," Tony told her.

Phil's eyes flicked toward him in surprise.

"I would appreciate that," she told him.

Odin's hand rested on her shoulder. "I think I can keep Asgard from ripping itself apart for a few days without you," he told her lightly.

"I've missed having time with both my boys together," she admitted.

Loki made a little half-aware complaining noise between them.

They stopped talking so he could get what little sleep he was managing to get.

* * *

The night was miserable and by the time for breakfast - it had been a while since he had been in a room with windows and was beginning to wonder what he needed to do to have a hope of getting the privilege - Loki was a wreck.

He remembered it now, in larger pieces.

And with the separation from the events...

He remembered and understood what kind of people _they_ were. And _**he**_ was, by extension.

And it was wrong, even though it was _them_.

And what he'd had to do and tried to do, just to survive.

But it was all a mixed-up snarl now, in his head. Was the system right but _they_ were bad actors in it, or was the system wrong and _they_ were just following it... or was he just so powerless that it didn't matter either way so long as he did his best to survive?

There was the horrified half-thrill of even questioning this.

And what about now? Everything _seemed_ different here, but so far the things he had openly done wrong were purely accidents or unavoidable facts of biology.

Loki honestly didn't know what would happen if, say, he were to put the forks and spoons in each others' places tonight at dinner. It scared him that last night he would have never thought of doing such a thing intentionally and it scared him that right now he was thinking of the possibility and it _terrified_ him that testing the situation like that seemed... right.

Like it was something worth doing. Just for the sake of putting the forks and spoons in the wrong places.

As if performing that little sliver of defiance _mattered_.

Odin took a turn feeding him, which was surprising and a little disconcerting because Loki couldn't remember a time since everything had happened when Odin had done so.

But with the way he was feeling and the available moments flowing by in ways he couldn't check, he'd take whatever time with and attention from his adoptive father he could get.


	25. Chapter 25

Loki leaned eagerly into Dr. Strange's hands.

Tony was surprised at how disturbed that made Frigga.

"He knows I mean no harm to him," Dr. Strange said quickly. "I did him a service last time, one he won't be forgetting. Hmm. Yes, He's doing much better. Still nowhere near healed, and there's nothing I can help with this time."

He removed the hands and leaned back.

"Can you tell us anything about his enemies?" Odin asked.

"I'm sorry. He can remember more of the abuse now - that may be the breakthrough he had last night, in fact - but identifying information wasn't included." He shook his head. "Single leader, one with a suspected interest in Lady Death, but that's one in three sorcerous warlords, statistically speaking."

"How is he, really?" Frigga asked.

Tony realized Loki was paying very close attention to Dr. Strange.

"He's beginning to realize what he's lost, socially as well as functionally. He was afraid this might be a soft prison, but that's been corrected."

Odin nodded.

"He's terrified of taking risks, of making errors."

"After what happened the past few days, I'd believe that," Tony told him. "Did that incident hurt him?"

"He's sure you all have something nearing his best interest in mind now. He's considering taking deliberate risks." Dr. Strange sighed. "And he got a major rite-of-passage for innate sorcerers over with."

"What's the rite of passage?" Tony asked after Frigga and Odin shared a worried and grim look.

Odin began speaking, quite slowly and methodically. "The Lady Death is less an anthropomorphic psychological construct and more the guise a being outside our capacities to fully understand choses to wear over her natural form. She tends to favor sorcerers, for good or ill."

"Which makes it very likely for an innate sorcerer to have near-Death experiences where someone else would see nothing. Especially young sorcerers - she likes to introduce herself, as it were."

"Wait, he had an _NDE_ because of us?"

"Mr. Stark, I am less surprised he had one and more surprised it was only his first. His opinion of her was healthy, and she resolved the issue that made him lose his appetite so dramatically."

"Which was?" Tony asked.

"Of an intensely private nature. It had something to do with Jotunheim and he did not want me to know anything more. And yes, he does know he is biologically Jotun. He's working through it, but there's no need to soften the fact of his ancestry when dealing with him now." Dr. Strange patted Loki's shoulder and overdid a smile. "You are doing just fine for now, Loki, and you should start to figure out speech again soon, or at least hearing it. Producing it will take much longer."

"Will it be like these breakthroughs have been?"

"Word by word, Mr. Stark, and not always in anticipated patterns. So give him all the speech you can on every topic you can." Dr. Strange firmed his hold on Loki's shoulder, but not enough to generate a complaint. "Producing will me worse. There was some sort of a block to make sure he _didn't_ discuss his enemies - or at least that's all I can think of that would leave that set of injuries when removed. That will make it harder and there's a chance _that_ won't heal so much as scar."

"So he may never speak," Odin said dully. He wrapped an arm around Frigga and held her close. She looked too distressed to react properly. Loki looked distinctly uneasy.

"May never speak _well_ ," Dr. Strange corrected. "He'll find ways to communicate so long as he has something to say and feels safe enough to try to express it. Right now, he feels reasonably secure expressing biological needs - although he won't act on them himself except in dire need. Which is still far better than he was doing."

"He tried to drink on his own when he was sick, but it came back up immediately," Tony reported. "And when he was going through the first breakthrough... he tried, intentionally, and _couldn't_. He... he just couldn't swallow it."

"And that would be psychological conditioning, Mr. Stark. Not a relic of the damage done to him. That just needs time, support, and a lack of pressure."

"So the best we can do for him is offer a stable safe environment with psychological stimulation, language enrichment, and opportunities to try making little choices for himself?"

Dr. Strange raised an eyebrow. "I thought your specialties were purely mechanical."

Tony rubbed the back of his head. "Pepper and Natasha may have just been handing me every potentially useful resource they could find for the past few weeks. And Bruce has been trying to teach me everything he knows about abuse psychology."

"I thought his expertise is chemical."

"... this is more in the _experiential_ realm," Tony hinted without any more detail than that. And that only because there was a bit of a legal paper trail involved, toward the end of Bruce's childhood, and because Bruce had told him he could hint about it to the Asgardians if he felt the need. It was less than an open records search could turn up if you knew the name of Bruce's father.

And it had taken weeks and weeks of idle chit-chat in the lab for Tony to find out what he did know.

Odin nodded gravely. "He is in hands that know what they are doing, then."

"I'm not sure I would say that after what happened just before you came..." Tony hedged.

"You asked us what resolution would be least distressing for him," Frigga reminded him. If you did not care, you would have delayed us as well you could, cleaned him up, and acted as if nothing happened. He is non-communicative right now, and therefore greatly vulnerable."

Dr. Strange let go of Loki's shoulder and gave him a gentle pat on the back. "All in all, he's doing quite well for all he's been through in the past few years." He seemed to consider something for a moment. "And I consider it a very good thing you sent him here. Some of what the Asgardian sorceress supreme has been saying..."

"Is there still danger?" Odin asked.

"I would not call it _danger_ , but... well, it's less what she's been telling me and more the solid stream of biased statements and anti-Jotun slurs she's been using to tell it."

Frigga closed her eyes.

"That's a problem."

Dr. Strange nodded. "I hadn't realized her views until Loki came here, but it made some other things in the past make sense. And it's an interrealm difficulty."

"How so, I thought the sorcerers supreme kept to their own worlds."

"There are historical chains of who is responsible for what should a world lose its sorcerer without a trained replacement handy. Jotunheim hasn't had one since before you took to the throne, Lord Odin, and Asgard is considered responsible for training the next one. There are no candidates I've heard tell of, there is no active search for a latent candidate, and with her views I have no doubt she is not doing her duty otherwise."

"No wonder..." Frigga breathed. "One of her top Asgardian potential students - she's been chasing after her for years, even though her primary interest is not innate sorcery at all - has been completely ignored of late. She defied her family, and I've been keeping an eye out for her." She sighed. "Well, at least now she can have some idea why that career door is closed."

"And she hasn't done anything actionable," Odin said dully.

"Not anything I've heard of, not within what I know of Asgardian law. If Lady Death hasn't acted, there's nothing that can be done from the sorcery side. And unfortunately from my side, I can't do anything against her personally because _Midgard_ is in the same client relationship with Asgard as Jotunheim is. I'm automatically her junior in more than age and experience if I bring anything before the rest of the sorcerers supreme." He sighed heavily. "I don't like it when I can't do anything, but that's what the political side of the situation seems to have gotten to. At least she's content with neglect of her out-of-home-realm responsibilities. I'll keep doing whatever I can for Loki. If we could just figure out who did this to him..."

Frigga brightened somewhat. "That could help him?"

"No. But no one does what they did to him without experience. That means there are others and someone needs _stopping_."

* * *

Everyone was a bit sullen when the Asgardians, Tony, and Dr. Strange came out of the room.

By agreement, they'd had an audio and video feed this time, courtesy of JARVIS. That way, they could all react without Loki reacting to _them_.

Pepper was off doing 'CEO things', as Tony called them, but the rest of them were there. Steve already found his mind running through what in the world they could try to do to help Loki now.

"I have one more question," Dr. Strange told Odin. "I don't know if it will matter or not, but it may."

"Ask, then."

"Where did you find Loki when you adopted him? Not which family he came from, not how many days old he was, just _where_?"

"The inside of the Jotun temple, on something I thought was an altar. Why?"

"Because that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. He _was_ abandoned with intent that he would die, but they consecrated him to Lady Death's safe-keeping first. Ritual abandonment of a wanted child who was not going to survive no matter what anyone did - or so his birth family would have thought."

_That_ brought back too many memories of his own childhood as a weak runt who had never had a hope of defending himself. Of one - or three - too many childhood diseases that practically killed him.

And, well, that meant that even though Loki _was_ a large man - he and Thor had probably been in constant competition for who would be taller all through their growth spurts, if Jotun and Asgardian development were anything like human - compared to what the rest of his species looked like, he really _was_ a worse runt than Steve had been. With all the brain development genetic coding of someone significantly larger.

That just made him feel more protective than he already had been.

_If we could just talk to you, even just to let you know you've got natural allies in us, people who_ understand _some of what you've gone through..._

But that was clearly not going to happen. Not soon, anyway.

"That means she's more likely to take this personally than she might be otherwise, and that Loki does have some amount of favor with her.

"Um, 'consecrated to Death'? Isn't that a potential, well, _problem_?" Tony asked.

"Everything dies eventually," Bruce replied softly.

Dr. Strange nodded. "Everything physical does. And that which tries to avoid that for too long tends to go insane. It has something to do with total amount of experienced time, so far as I understand it. The limit is still well beyond even the standard lifespan of an Asgardian, though. Anyway, the intent would have been for her to take him on whenever his condition degraded enough to kill him, and not have him linger until there was no other possible outcome. That is one form her favor can take. For sorcerers supreme, it takes the form of her leaving us alone until something other than normal effects of age for our species kill us - mostly physical damage from a battle. Loki survived his infancy, so her favor would now more likely be weighted to his survival rather than his death. And whether he has her favor or not - and I believe he does - she will consider such a gross offense against his being as an offense against something that belongs to her." He gave a grim grin. "And considering what has been known to happen to people who obstructed sorcerers supreme acting on her direct instructions, that is not a good thing for Loki's enemies."

* * *

Loki wondered what the strange man had told his mother and father that morning.

He wondered all morning, straight through lunchtime, and was still wondering when his father gave him a few extra hugs and quite obviously took his leave.

And his mother didn't.

His father chuckled a little at his reaction to having what was happening not match what they had explained would happen, and then... it took a while, but he finally understood that his mother was going to stay a few more days, but that Thor was definitely coming back once Odin reclaimed his throne.

And that was more than all right with Loki.


	26. Chapter 26

Thor was already packed to return to Midgard when Heimdall sent a messenger to tell him Odin would be there soon enough for Thor to come out on the Bifrost.

He'd gone through his and Loki's clothing, looking for the things that would fit in with the humans of New York City now that Thor knew better what would blend in. He'd gone though Loki's other possessions, looking for anything familiar enough to be comforting or that might be useful for Loki to have otherwise.

Including the fluffy toy he'd found tucked away in a clear place of honor. Either Loki would reject it as childish, or he'd take it as the comfort it was meant to be.

And then there were books -- nothing containing knowledge that couldn't leave Asgardian control, of course, but maybe Loki's favorite mid-level reference on the wildlife of other realms might trigger something?

_And Jane will love reading it to him,_ he thought with a smile as he tucked it into the top of the last pack again. She loved every single bit of information she could get about other worlds.

It was a small matter to take his leave of the Three and Sif after they had helped him tote all of that down to the stables.

He would miss them, and he would worry about how Sif was doing -- and told her so -- but for now, his primary worries were all for his brother.

* * *

Odin arrived at almost the same moment Thor did.

Thor handed over his spear. "All went well last night and this morning," he reported. "How is Loki?"

"He remembers more of what they did to him, now. Best guess is that he felt safe with your mother and I there and his mind decided to get that over with."

"Then we know who?" Thor asked hopefully.

Odin shook his head, and his eye looked as expressionless as his eyepatch. "Nothing of use to us in finding anyone. What bits he remembered, Dr. Strange said apply to far too many potential enemies. He has sworn to keep helping, and he says Loki may begin to regain comprehension of speech soon but slowly.

"That's at least one piece of good news," Thor said. "I just wish there was more."

"Your mother will be staying a few more days." Odin smiled. "I think she's been missing having time with both of her sons at the same time."

The thought that it was currently unsafe and technically impossible for _Odin_ to have time with them at the same time went unspoken.

* * *

Thor was anxious the entire helicopter ride to Stark Tower.

He ate in flight after he could no longer ignore his hunger, even though he was going to make it in plenty of time to eat dinner with everyone.

_At least this is shorter than the trip from New Mexico,_ he reminded himself.

Natasha was doing her best to distract him, but it didn't work half as well as he thought she meant it to. And it really was a nice gesture that she had flown out with Odin so that she could come back with Thor.

"He really is doing better," she told him for the hundredth time. "You'll see."

* * *

Pepper walked into the living areas of the Tower and was immediately accosted by Bruce.

"I need a favor," he told her.

"Sure," she told him. Bruce didn't ask for anything often, and nothing off-the-wall or illegal when he did. "What do you need?"

He handed her a slip of paper and she quickly read down it.

And it didn't take a Tony Stark or a Natasha Romanov to know exactly what he was asking.

"Bruce, no," she told him firmly. "You don't need to do this. We trust you, and the Other Guy knows we're all allies now. You even told me when we took our trip upstate that you'd made sure he knows Loki isn't an enemy anymore."

"I need to," he told her. "It's going to take months for him to get to the point where anything else can work, he's nervous around any sign of anger in anyone anyway, and you... you weren't there. He's... He doesn't know what to make of me. _That_ will help."

"Sure Tony can't just build you one to spec when he gets done with Loki's board?"

"... I'm trying to keep Tony from knowing until after I have it. I don't think he'll take it well."

"Bruce?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think _anyone_ is going to take you doing this well."

He gave her an embarrassed smile. "Why do you think I want one of the new ones that look like any other watch?"

"And if it doesn't get him to calm down around you?"

"Oh, I don't expect it will. He's got plenty of reason to be afraid of the Other Guy, after all, and also to think I'd want vengeance for what happened up on the helicarrier. I don't like being treated like a timebomb," he said lightly.

She smiled. "I don't know any would who would like that."

"What I am thinking is that it would give him a clear signal of when he's getting into dangerous territory while I can still keep the Other Guy from showing up. And that, with time, could let him calm down. He needs to keep caution -- you all do -- but he needs to know what _enough_ caution is."

"Bruce..."

"Pepper, it's okay. If I hadn't been trying to stay undercover when I was on the run, I would have kept one on. But the purchase pattern..."

"You don't want SHIELD to flag the purchase, do you?"

"They'll find out. Phil's going to know the same time everyone else finds out, anyway. But..." He took a deep breath. "After all those 'Hulk Is A Hero' signs and everything, I don't want the outside world to know I'm sticking a heart rate monitor on myself again. If it just looks like any other watch..."

"Then no one has to know, except friends who know Loki's the reason why," she finished.

* * *

Loki brightened when Thor entered the bedroom the brothers had been sharing, then seemed to become anxious.

There was a chirp that might have been a question.

Thor was stunned. "Did he just _ask_...?"

Frigga nodded contently. "He can't speak or understand words yet, but he's communicating very well for one in his condition. And it's only been three or four days he's been trying."

"... I wish I could have been here."

"Dr. Strange things you absence was a trigger of sorts for the change, Thor. Figuring out why it mattered you left forced the first memory breakthrough."

"He knows we are family, them?" he asked her in choked words.

She nodded. "And that he is adopted, and from where." A grim pause. "Your father and I think there's a chance he remembers what happened to Laufey."

Thor nodded grimly in response.

Another questioning sound, this time more tentative and more frightened.

"Thor?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"Stop making your brother uneasy and greet him properly before he decides you don't want a Jotun brother."

Thor nodded and finally drew closer. "I'm back, Loki. I may have to leave you when Father needs me or this realm needs defending, but right now my place is here with you."

Loki tilted his head.

Thor sat down beside them and hugged Loki.

He could feel how tense Loki's shoulders and back were.

"What is it?" he asked, stressing every non-verbal question cue he could.

Loki looked away. Pointed at himself, and then traced out a chevron on the back of his hand.

"What does he mean by that?"

"It's a family marking, inborn in Laufey's kin. When Loki is not shifted into an Asgardian form..."

"... he bears that marking as a Jotun."

Loki was still looking away, and now he was shaking under Thor's arm.

Thor smiled weakly, poked a finger into Loki's arm to get his attention, and then retraced the marking before giving him a firm but gentle squeeze.

Loki's eyes drifted up to Thor's.

"You are still my brother," Thor told him.

Loki relaxed against him somewhat, face leaned against his chest.

It took a moment for Thor to realize he was crying silently.

That unnerved him. He had never known Loki to have that particular skill other than for crying so light it might as well be called 'leaking tear ducts'.

This was not that, and he dreaded the thought of what might have taught him.

He kept hold of his weeping brother.

After a moment, he remembered a time when Loki was not quite ready to toddle yet.

Thor rocked him back and forth, murmuring "baby brother" over and over again in a sing-song voice.

In the memory, he had carried Loki around. But if he'd objected when they were children -- and he had, loudly -- he would certainly object now.

Loki stopped crying and got very, very still.

Thor stopped rocking and talking.

Loki objected loudly.

Frigga gasped, eyes wide. "Dr. Strange said he was close..."

Thor pointed between he and Loki. "Brothers."

Loki nodded excitedly.

Thor repeated it a few more times while Loki focused intently.

Then, Thor felt like trying something, just to see what would happen.

He poked Loki. "Baby."

"Thor," Frigga warned.

Thor poked him again. "Baby."

Loki looked to Frigga in confusion.

She sighed, acted out rocking an infant in her arms, and repeated, "Baby."

Loki turned back to Thor with his mouth half open and a look of being absolutely appalled on his face.

"Thor, don't taunt your brother."

Thor didn't listen. After a few more repeats, Loki grabbed his hand when Thor moved to poke him again.

Loki froze, let go of the hand, and braced himself with a look of misery on his face.

"Thor, he's been punished for _eating_ ," Frigga reminded him.

Thor pointed between them again. " _Brothers_." He held Loki close without any other words at all, and after a moment Loki relaxed -- fully relaxed -- against him.

"What did you just do?"

"I was trying to remind him that brothers annoy each other, but it's not meant in malice. And it's okay if he objects and makes me stop." He smiled down at Loki's uncharacteristically -- or at least it used to be uncharacteristic -- unruly black hair. "I think he understood."

"I think he did, too." She wiped away a tear, and Loki looked at her with obvious concern. He even twisted against Thor to do it.

"I wonder if we can teach him some other words now."

"Dr. Strange said it would be more a remembering word by word process than anything else," she told him.

"So it will take a while."

"Years, if he gets everything back. Which is not certain. Particularly for speech -- there was at least one contributing factor he had not been able to detect before there. Dr. Strange predicts he may never speak well again."

Thor cursed.

Loki flinched.

Thor pointed between them. "Brothers." He pointed to himself. "Thor." Then at Loki. "Loki." Between them again. "Brothers."

After another repetition, Loki gave an uneasy nod.

Frigga did the same with her and Loki's names, and then added, "Mother, son," between her and Thor and then her and Loki.

Loki pointed at himself with a questioning chirp.

"Loki," Thor told him.

Frigga shook her head. "I don't think that's what he's asking." She pointed at Thor. "Son." She held her stomach. "Mother." She pointed at Loki. "Son." She mimed the Naming Day ritual that had formally adopted him. "Mother."

And then, with Loki freshly weeping in her arms with that same unnatural silence, she told Thor, "He's needed -- wanted, desperately -- a great deal of reassurance."

Thor nodded. "I'm glad."

Frigga gave him an appalled look.

"Before I left, he didn't have the sense to need it."

* * *

"Ms. Potts," JARVIS spoke softly as Pepper walked towards the door, "I believe some sort of congratulatory treat for Loki may be in order."

"Oh? What's happened?" she asked.

It would be easy enough to find something. She just had to pick up takeout for dinner and find Bruce's requested athletic device, and the takeout provided plenty of opportunity.

"He appears to have gotten his name back, and a few basic family words."

Pepper let out a breath and tension she hadn't realized she was holding left. _Now if we can just teach him 'no' and 'danger'..._

She grinned. "I think I can find a treat for him."

It really had been opportune that she was allergic to strawberries. It meant that when they'd had them on the menu one night just after Dr. Strange's first visit, she'd slipped hers to Loki after he'd helped set up the table, just so they wouldn't be there by her plate. Cue a reaction that could only mean a favored food, much as he had tried to hide it in fear.

And she knew the local grocer sold boxes of frozen juice bars. Including strawberry.

"Actually, I think I know just the thing."

* * *

Frigga rocked Loki in her arms, repeating his name and her claim of "son" over and over again into his hair at varying intervals.

Thor didn't recognize the danger until a second before Loki's whimper.

"Thor, what...?" she asked, seeing the look on his face.

Thor said nothing to her. He pointed through the "Friggason" matronymic for both of them, waited for the nod, and mimed through "Thor, Thorson". He found his hand grabbed and forced still to the accompaniment of tears as he said, "Loki."

Frigga was the one who cursed that time, and it was a long hour as they held him between them and together mourned some futures clearly no longer meant to be, if they had ever been meant to be.


	27. Chapter 27

Pepper walked into the room. "Someone told me," she said with a quick nod up, "that Loki got some words back." And then she processed what was going on. "Okay, what happened and who do I need to find?"

"We accidentally formed the patronymic form of his name, and he reacted," Frigga said with no small amount of regret.

"I checked by miming myself holding a babe, using the name any son I might have would bear," Thor continued. "He prevented me from repeating the pattern with his name."

"So he thinks children are out of the question now." Pepper felt like cursing. _Of all the things he could have realized before he can communicate effectively... even if Tony had that board ready he couldn't._

"Biologically, it was likely already so," Frigga said softly as she ran a hand through Loki's hair and mournfully looked down at him. "We never knew whether his size was from genetics or something acquired developmentally. Even if he was attracted to others of his own species, and I've never seen a sign he might be, the risks would be too high. If we had told him of his ancestry in a controlled manner, I would have explained it too him when he learned the rest. As it was, he was too off-balance for any more shocks until... until everything went wrong for our family."

Pepper could see Loki reacting a little to the tone in her voice. Something about the way his shoulders tensed and untensed, visible enough through his shirt to matter.

When was everyone else - anyone else - going to notice that talking about him as if in his absence was not a good thing for him?

She put a hand on one of said shoulders and gave it a squeeze. "You're safe, Loki. That's what matters right now. And I've got a treat waiting for you, down in the freezer, once you're up to it, all right?"

He didn't respond to the question, and she knew he couldn't have understood it yet, but she did feel him relax a little under her hand.

Thor met her eyes for a second and gave her a slightly apologetic look.

_At least_ now _he remembers what I already told him._

Loki looked up at her eventually.

She pointed at him. "Loki."

He gave a little nod, enough for her to be absolutely sure of the response.

And the wonderful fact he was functionally capable of forming answers to yes/no questions.

She pointed at herself. "Pepper."

After a moment of concentration, he nodded.

"We've got takeout in," she told them all. "Pizza this time. It's usually not a bite-size food, but enough of the humans here prefer using knives and forks to eat it that Loki shouldn't feel too out of place."

Thor grumbled. "That, Brother, is the skill I wish you could get back next."

* * *

The world should not be this way, it should never be this way.

There shouldn't be lurking dangers and remembered dangers and people destroyed even after their enemies were long gone from them.

He rubbed at the band on his wrist with a mix of gladness that it felt just like any other watch and distress that it didn't feel any different.

It would have been good to have a physical focus again, Bruce reflected as he stood just outside the door. He'd used the early monitors that way enough, when he was first figuring out control.

Of course, now he was fairly sure he didn't need the focus anymore.

The world was wrong. There were many bad things that very much needed a good firm smashing. Sometimes repeatedly. But none of them were here now, and when the time came, well...

There was something precious in feeling safe enough often enough to just offer the Other Guy the promise that Bruce would let him take over when he was actually needed. In the fact there was An Agreement of sorts now, an understanding.

A trust.

Bruce could be angry all the time. He had enough reasons for it. But the Other Guy would only come out when Bruce knew he could be useful. Or could have time smashing things no one cared about anymore.

He stepped inside the room with an anxious smile, trying not to be afraid of what Thor's reaction might be.

Fear was a different story than anger, and a more dangerous one.

"Am I interrupting anything?"

"No, you're fine," Pepper assured him. "I was just telling them I brought dinner."

He took in the tear tracks on Loki's face, along with the usual visual spike in anxious caution.

Bruce wished for the thousandth time that he had a way to just tell Loki that freezing around the Other Guy was better than running, because there was no way Loki wouldn't instantly bolt unless he knew. Maybe even if he knew.

_Maybe I can add that to the list, too._

"Not been a good day?" he asked him, privately adding this to the list of universal unfairness.

Pepper walked over to him. "He realized he is not going to have children of his own," he whispered in his ear.

Now _that_ was an ache Bruce was familiar with.

He walked the rest of the way over. "Hey, Loki. I know you've had a bad afternoon, but I've got something to show you that you'll like. I promise."

Loki tilted his head quizzically.

"He cannot have possibly understood that," Frigga reminded him.

Fragmentary memories of the Other Guy, being treated as if he didn't have a third of the mind he actually did. The thing Loki had called him that finally and completely set him off... Loki lying on the ground afterward...

Bruce didn't have a choice but to treat Loki as another thinking creature.

He showed Loki the watch.

Thor only took a few seconds to react. "Banner, there is no need of such precautions..."

"It's not a precaution, Thor. He has no way of knowing when I cross the line from safe to dangerous. He doesn't know I have the transformations under control most of the time, now. It's so he will know when _he_ may be in danger from me... and relax the rest of the time."

Meanwhile, Loki was staring at it, even squinting a few times, clearly trying to figure out the puzzle of what could be important about it.

Bruce reached for one of Loki's hands, waited long enough for Loki to let him guide it, and held Loki's fingers to the pulse point at his temple.

And thought about all the horrible horrible things he and the Other Guy both wanted to do to whoever had done this to Loki. Preferably slowly.

Loki tried to pull away as his pulse rose, and then...

**Beep... Beep... Beep...**

Bruce let the focus of his thoughts go elsewhere, on the fact none of that could happen because they had no clue who had done this or where they were. _Yet._

The beeping went away.

Loki stared at the watch in confusion.

And then his eyes grew wide and he gave an open-mouthed grin like Bruce hadn't seen on him before.

And then he realized: ever since his arrival, Loki had intimately remembered that anything that could get Bruce's heart rate up was a bad idea. Loki knew how the Other Guy showed up, and he'd been doing whatever prevention he thought he could.

Even things like playing comatose. Like not being the first to touch. Like not making fast movements.

It hadn't been fear, it had been extreme caution.

"Don't worry unless it starts beeping, Loki," he instructed carefully. "That's when you have something to worry about."

Loki couldn't understand the words yet, but Bruce was sure he'd understood the answering smile.

* * *

Pizza was the furthest thing from Tony's mind the moment Pepper, Bruce, and the two Asgardians walked into the dining room.

"No. You aren't. No."

"Tony, he had to," Pepper told him. "There wasn't another way."

Phil was there already, and there was no way SHIELD was sending him away on any duty until Frigga left. Tony was glad of the potential backup. "Had to do what?"

"He's wearing a pulse monitor," Natasha told him.

"Um, Bruce? If there's been a change in your control of..."

"Loki had no other means of knowing when there is a danger," Thor interrupted. "Nor do we have a way to tell him the depth of control that has been achieved until he regains more language."

"It was the easiest way to get him to calm down around me," Bruce offered. "And I won't wear it out of the tower. And it worked, so at least for now it's worth it."

No one argued.

Tony still hated it.

"Wait, 'more language'?" Clint asked.

"He understands a few names and some family relationship words now," Frigga announced proudly.

That shifted attention onto Loki and off of Bruce, and the conversation the rest of the evening revolved around repeating names and praising him for the improvements he'd managed.

* * *

Loki was exhausted - emotionally, physically, and mentally - by the time Thor and Frigga finished feeding him. He thought they must have noticed, because Pepper clearly nearly went to go get something, looked at Loki's face, and then sat back down.

Bruce followed Loki and his family back to their bedroom.

Loki didn't mind much - it wasn't his place, and he knew he was safe now unless he heard the warning beeps - but he hoped they would let him sleep soon.

It had been a long day, he missed Odin already, and just lying still in the dark with Thor's familiar breathing in the room seemed like it would be a wonderful thing to do.

Bruce sat next to him on the bed and said something he didn't understand at all, not a single word.

It was frustrating.

Bruce seemed to recognize that. He paused for a moment in thought, then quietly stated, "No sons of Loki?" He figured out the 'of' meaning from context, even if the word itself didn't seem right, and any other time he would have been quite proud of himself for managing that much.

Now, it just brought the pain of the recent realization back in near-full force.

Even if he wasn't biologically Jotun, even if he wasn't so wrecked psychologically... what woman would want a man who couldn't keep the meaning of 'of' in his head?

Bruce wrapped an arm around his shoulders and told him, "No sons of Bruce."

And after a moment of thought, Loki realized that had to be true. And that he must have figured out early on, had time to react, had time to adjust his concept of his own future.

That meant Bruce knew what this was like, for Asgardians and humans had similar family structures. And, from what Loki knew, the Jotun on Jotunheim had a stranger but still relatively similar system themselves. And...

And thinking was only making him more tired.

He leaned towards Bruce, accepting the sympathetic embrace for what it was.

* * *

When Bruce left and they had settled in for the night, Loki and Thor were each nestled under one of Frigga's arms the way she used to keep them for the night when they were small and had nightmares or believed monsters were lurking in their rooms.

Thor even held his hand, the way he used to when they were all three lying like this, the way he had for so long Loki couldn't even remember when he had started.

And he knew, somehow, that even before _them_ , he hadn't been able to remember.

It was reassuring.

_Tomorrow,_ he promised himself with a thrill of worry. _Tomorrow I'll swap his fork and his spoon. While Mother is still here. While he still feels this protective._

_While it might be safe._

* * *

Thor could almost hear his mother's contented smile in the dark as Loki's breathing slowed into deep sleep.

He certainly heard the contented sigh a moment later.

"It is good to be back together, even for so short a time," Thor whispered.

"Mmm." The slightest chuckle. "You held his hand like that the first time you met."

"Really?" he asked.

"He was maybe two days old, if that, and you were far too young to be weaned yourself. You were having your dinner when Odin brought him in and... you just sort of flailed a hand out to his when he was put beside you."

Thor chuckled lightly at the mental image. That had been them ever since, side by side. Brothers. Until everything fell apart.

"It was the first safe moment in his life, Thor." A pause. "I'm glad my boys have each other now." She kissed the top of his head. "Now go to sleep, my little prince, while I keep this watch. I promise if there is a bilgesnipe under the bed, I will wake you and help you defend us all."

Loki snorted a laugh in his sleep. No need to wonder why - it was an old joke and the pattern would be as familiar to him as the creases in Thor's palm.

Thor yawned and stilled, and soon knew nothing until morning.


	28. Chapter 28

It was a comfortable day, as such things went for him, even with the growing anxiety about his plan for that night. For the most part, his mother and brother chatted with each other, and occasionally said something directed at him that he simply couldn't make sense of, and Loki simply listened to the sound of their voices and was glad he had both of them there right now.

_She will defend me, if he reacts badly,_ he thought. _She never liked disciplining either of us, when we did things wrong._ That he remembered very clearly.

And this was doing something very wrong.

Putting the utensils out was his duty here, it seemed. A small, simple, easy thing. Making an error, much less an intentional one...

_They are not_ them _, not in the least,_ he reminded himself. _And_ they _would not punish you for disobeying those who foiled the invasion._

That was a very freeing thought indeed. So long as he followed the greater rules...

There was unease at that thought.

He was still cautiously working through what he actually thought of _them_.

* * *

Pepper left Loki mainly to his own devices as he set the table.

In fact, she spent much of her time 'observing him' covering her face with her hand and wishing she could just spend all her time dealing with him instead of these few moments in the evenings.

It was much easier and more fun than being a CEO and managing Tony's unique ideas of how things should be run. She had the rank, he had the antics and the scientific genius.

And right now, Loki was acting as suspicious as she had ever seen him. Not so much by making it obvious exactly what he was up to, and more by looking guilty as sin and then adding even more guilt on top of it.

Which meant he was doing something that was incredibly wrong in whatever concept of good and bad behavior he was currently using.

Given who had 'taught' him proper behavior most recently, that was likely a very good thing.

But what was he up to...?

She casually walked around the table, just looking.

And then, so carefully done she almost didn't notice... Thor had a spoon for a fork. And a fork for a spoon.

_Ah, a prank._

A prank that was going to be more impressive than whatever Loki had intended, given dinner was going to be soup tonight and if Thor just grabbed for his 'spoon' without looking...

She realized Loki was looking right at her, frozen still with whatever anxiety and fear the little bit of rebellion had generated.

Pepper beckoned him to follow her and set out for the kitchen.

* * *

Loki didn't know where she was leading him.

She had seen what he'd done. She'd looked right at it.

He didn't know what willful disobedience meant here, and there was an odd sort of satisfaction behind the thought that he was finally going to find out.

He didn't think they had doing anything like what happened to Failures to anyone in them, ever. So he was safe from that. But there was so much less than that.

It was said Failures begged for the same punishments the rest of them got, even the ones that left the punished being in agony, in the brief times they had a chance to dare speak.

That was the horror of it. Failures were kept under complete physical control, where they couldn't get into more trouble. And then eventually, they were given over to...

He stopped, quickly enough that Pepper must have heard the difference.

She looked at him oddly, but he didn't care.

They were given over to Lady Death. Killed, he'd have called it if the religious connotations of service to her weren't involved.

And he'd met her, now. For only a little, but that was enough.

Enough to know she'd showed compassion toward him, let him see his blood-family in the lands beyond this life.

If she knew those things were being done in her name, she would not be happy.

Which meant...

He shook his head. Too much thinking.

Pepper gave him a little sympathetic smile.

They stayed on the same floor, and quickly entered another room.

Loki had never been in a proper Midgardian kitchen. _They_ had fed him and the others out of raided vending machines here and there, never enough to be comfortable in his case but that hadn't been his to question.

He wondered for a moment just what menial task she was going to set him as punishment.

Only there was no punishment. She opened a refrigerated cabinet - incredibly primitive, compared to Asgardian technology - rummaged a moment, and pulled a small package out and opened it.

And then she walked over to him, gently pinned his head the way they did at meals, and let him taste whatever it was.

It was freezing cold, as cold as ice, and the first thing he actually processed about it was that it actually _was_ ice.

He was still thinking in terms of punishments, and thought immediately that Pepper must not know or must have forgotten what he was. Frost giants had no fear of ice, unless it was sharp enough to cut or heavy enough to crush. This small thing was neither.

And it wasn't even proper solid ice, it was...

That was when the taste hit him, nearly the same as those little red Midgardian fruit she had introduced him to and that he liked so much.

This wasn't a punishment. This was a... treat? A reward?

For doing something _wrong_?

He whined a question, completely confused. She'd been so careful to show him exactly what he should do. And table settings were very important. Anyone who had ever spent time around Thor's friends knew it dearly, and the fragments of memory made that very clear. There was a science to dining utensils.

And that was when she gave him a gentle squeeze, a kind word, and another bite of the treat.

He _was_ being rewarded...

_She saw which place setting I did that to,_ he realized. She knew he was pranking Thor. And she was praising him for it.

And through all the bewilderment, one thought rose to the top:

It wasn't even a particularly good prank!

* * *

Thor sat down at the dining room table.

He had felt a big odd with Loki returning to his one chore - he hadn't done a thing but stay with his family yesterday - but Frigga had mentioned how much having that little something to do reliably often seemed to mean to Loki and Thor had observed the same, so it really had to be allowed.

"You use soup as a main course, even when not off questing?" Frigga asked them.

"Often," Bruce explained to her. "It's fast, it's easy, it stores well premade. Stew is less common here now, but there are countries where various soups and stews are the dominant foods. I'm not pleased to admit it, but potable water is still an issue elsewhere on this planet, and anything that provides boiled safe water in a diet is very valuable in those regions."

Frigga looked shocked. Thor was a bit as well, even though he had seen a great deal of what the less-settled regions of this continent looked like when on the road with Loki.

But drinking water had never been an issue, unless it was the issue of getting it into him.

"Bruce used to do medical work in one of those areas," Natasha explained in the uneasy stillness that followed.

Thor reached for his spoon as his mother began asking questions about modern Midgard. He absent-mindedly raised it to his mouth for the first bite...

And looked down in confusion as his tongue hit tines.

He looked around at the others' plates.

Everyone else had their fork exactly where he'd expected his own to be. All the spoons seemed to have come from where he'd grabbed his fork.

Obviously his place had been accidentally set differently.

His mother chuckled.

He looked around again, this time at faces, and found Pepper trying to stifle laughter behind a hand.

The joke was cruel, and nothing like what he knew of her. Utensil setting was Loki's business at dinner, surely he would blame himself for the intentional error, and he was just dangerous enough to himself in such a state for Thor to grow fearful.

Pepper would have known that outcome was certain.

Thor wondered suddenly if it had really been safe to leave Loki with her alone so often and for so long, if she was so careless and carefree now.

And then he looked at Loki, who was anxious and nervous and fearful... and more than a little amused.

Frigga let out a proper laugh and wrapped an arm around Loki. "Oh, that was good to see."

"What just happened?" Tony asked.

"Loki pranked Thor. Intentionally," Pepper reported. "Although I don't think he had any idea we were going to have soup when he did it.

"He pranked Thor," Bruce repeated. "As in, intentionally broke a rule just to get on his brother's nerves."

Pepper nodded. "He intentionally broke a rule."

Applause broke out and Loki looked ready to dive under the table.

* * *

Loki was still dazed and confused when they were settling in to sleep that night.

Thor hadn't harmed him. He hadn't even threatened it.

Thor hadn't even seemed angry, except maybe at the very first. And Loki still wasn't sure if that anger had been at him. It had seemed like he was angry with Pepper, which didn't make sense at all.

Pepper hadn't done anything but give him a treat and not fix the intentional error. It wasn't her fault. Thor should have known Loki was the one to blame. He still didn't entirely understand the treat, either, because being rewarded for what he had done didn't make any sense.

And their mother had even found it funny to start with.

But it was _wrong_. It didn't matter who found it funny or who didn't care, it was _wrong_.

Thor must have noticed his unease, because he poked Loki and simply said "Brothers."

But Thor was allowed to bother him. Thor had always been allowed to bother him. He remembered that. Time and time again, Thor was allowed. He was oldest. What Thor did to him, with very few limits generally involving bloodstains, was allowed.

Loki hadn't been allowed that. He could remember unhappy looks at best. A laugh, here and there, for something particularly well done.

And 'particularly well done' was realms away from what he had a hope of doing now.

Whatever the 'place' Thor had kept remind him of was, what he'd done tonight was not it.

But as he settled down beside his mother again, happy for the contact and the fact they had not exiled him to the other bed in the room, he couldn't help but hold on to the thought, even as he drifted into sleep:

He hadn't been punished for the little error. Maybe he was actually safe here, unless he did something absolutely unthinkable.

He didn't have to worry about what simple mistakes, misunderstandings, and errors could lead to.

And that was a comforting thought.


	29. Chapter 29

Things stayed relatively calm for the rest of Frigga's visit, to Tony's relief.

Loki was currently capable of making enough trouble on his own - more than enough - simply by the level of care he still needed. Add in Queen Frigga, and the situation was an incident waiting to happen.

An incident Earth simply didn't have trained diplomats for, yet.

He'd be glad when they finally did. He certainly wasn't suited to that, and he wasn't thrilled with having that potential disaster hanging over his head in his home, either.

He liked the Asgardians, personally. It was simply the fact that if things went really wrong while Frigga or Odin was present - after the Chitauri invasion, Tony didn't feel the same about Thor's presence - there would be no defending against the response. He hadn't known that before he'd ribbed Thor about his cape, and he could quietly admit to himself that knowing better probably wouldn't have been enough to still his tongue.

And so he distracted himself by speeding the work on one of his current projects.

* * *

Frigga ran her fingers through Loki's hair as he leaned against her.

She would be leaving this afternoon, and he'd been informed well enough to show clear signs that he did understand that her visit was at an end.

She would be happy when he could communicate more than simple need, simple contentment, and basic confusion. It was clear, oh so clear now, that her little Loki was operating at a much higher level than that now. And even if he couldn't bear to tell them what had been done to him yet, she could tell there were things he needed to say.

Physical gestures had never come particularly naturally to him. Words had. He had spoken before Thor and they had never been certain if it was Loki being a Jotun with a different developmental timeline or Loki simply being Loki.

Tony Stark stuck his head in the doorway. He looked nervous. "I have something for Loki," he told her. "It took me a bit longer to put it together than I thought it would."

"Thor is sparring with Steve," she told him. "Whatever it is, it would be better if you demonstrated it to him than to me."

Tony walked fully into the room, carrying a handheld Midgardian device. That wasn't odd at all, for he was always transferring bits of tech around his residence. Loki had always been much the same with the physical components of his sorcery, a thought that nearly brought tears to her eyes.

Loki wasn't going to be that man again, the man who always had hologram generators tucked into pockets even in his own quarters in the evenings even after he pared down his blades into the least self-defense a warrior and prince of Asgard could dare carry.

"Actually," Tony told her with more confidence, "it's not for you or Thor to use. It's for Loki's own use. And I think he'd prefer to start using it while you are still around."

"What is it?"

"Hopefully a communication device he can use," Tony told her. "It's icon based, so it won't be a problem that he doesn't seem to be trying to read again just yet."

"We left that sort of technology behind, long ago," she breathed after a moment's shock.

They were so used to communications technology based on direct mind interfaces, ones that absolutely required an intact mind even if the biological substrate to it was disturbed, that making a device for Loki had been out of the question.

The possibilities of the older technologies simply hadn't crossed their minds. Normally, they simply weren't useful any more even with the basic components required all over the realm.

Loki would have figured it out in the old days if it were some other resident of Asgard who had been harmed in this way.

"Then why hadn't you tried something else?" Tony asked her calmly with the barest touch of accusation.

"Because our current technology can deal with brain damage or deterioration but not harm to the mind. It's all based on direct sensing of the communication centers in the brain. Even if we knew about what normal structure is for someone of his genetic background... He'll be too far from anything nature alone creates, even from disease, for that to work."

"Loki isn't eligible for Asgardian communication devices, then."

She shook her head. "We knew it would fail and there were no signs he would even get far enough along to be able to use assistive technology at all, so in the beginning we didn't try. And I don't think he'll ever be able to use our current technology."

Tony grinned. "Then let's see what he does with ours."

* * *

Loki was incredibly confused.

Tony was acting strange, his mother was acting strange, and he had no clue what was going on.

But then, he still wasn't sure he ought to know what was going on.

Tony had some sort of primitive technology in his hand. Primitive for both peoples, Loki could somehow remember.

The humans had graduated to clear screens and holographic displays, he knew, and their components were nearly as small now as most used on Asgard - the smallest user-serviceable by anyone that lived on their physical scale - even if they were nowhere near as powerful, fast...

This was a chunky handheld device with an older screen technology.

Tony was better than this. That was another of the things he simply knew. Everything _they_ had allowed him to access about Tony Stark's abilities had showed he was on the absolute forward edge of the planet's computing tech and had been that way since childhood. Both in designing and in utilizing.

And then Tony handed him the device.

It had been quite a while since he had been allowed true access to technology. **_He_** had true control of the staff, and more importantly anyone touched by it. And _they_ had known better than to allow him anything that was not locked down completely, even after he had stopped fighting.

He stared down at the little device in his hand. Incredibly primitive, and yet familiar.

And then, he knew. He had seen this technology before.

The screen was displaying a few - a very few - brightly colored icons. One had a symbol he thought he should recognize. Another had the head-and-shoulders emblem that he somehow knew was nearly universal among bipedal species that used the basic body plan Asgardians and humans shared.

He remembered this. It had been in materials he couldn't quite make sense of now, but he could make sense of that part of it all.

Historical communications devices. Such as Asgard had used before their technology had advanced far enough that this device had no purpose anymore, the replacements were so much more useful. He couldn't make much sense of what he knew about the recent technology, though. Something about direct mind interfaces...

_Oh!_

Mind damage. Of course he couldn't use Asgardian tech. And Tony Stark...

Tony Stark had made advanced-for-his-planet battle armor in a cave with a box of scrap metal and limited amounts of rarer materials. That much Loki remembered about him. Of course Tony Stark would put something like this together for him, since communicating seemed so important to Tony.

He knew from the person icon that this had to be a category screen. There was no reason for Tony to consider the concept of 'a person' important enough for its own symbol.

He pushed the symbol he thought he recognized.

Everything shifted, and here was a group of icons that seemed to all be things that one of the humans might make requests about. The image of a made bed. A glass of water. A plate of food. Even something that looked like a simplified interior of human bathroom, and another of the plumbing the water for bathing came from.

_Things a man could feel the need to ask for,_ Loki realized. If he'd had something like this only a few days ago, he could have requested a trip to the bathroom instead of being limited to a generalized request for a non-specific something.

Tony Stark meant him - Loki - to be able to request these things from him at the very least, possibly from all of them. Not just the bathroom requests he'd felt safe making so far.

He could ask to bathe, he realized. Just simply ask, just because he wanted to feel cleaner. There was no way for him to offer a reason, so Tony must not have been expecting him to give one.

And then there were those other icons, the ones that drew his eye even when he fought to look anywhere else.

It was a dangerous idea and he knew it well, knew it in the pit of his stomach as deeply as he knew high heat was dangerous.

He could ask for water. Any time, and these humans and his brother and his mother until she left as well would _know_. And even more daringly, he could ask for food.

There was no promise that he would get anything, but he could ask.

He hadn't even tried to ask for water since that day when he had...

When he had eaten and been... caught. And... punished.

And that, then, was what it took to remember.


	30. Chapter 30

 

There didn't seem to be anything wrong at first. Loki was staring intently at the screen, first examining the main menu and then the request page, which was linked to the only non-pictgram on the main menu.

Tony had done that very intentionally, hoping Loki would be curious enough to check it out first. He was glad it had worked. The sooner they could let Loki start processing that requests for food were allowed, the better.

For them and most definitely for him.

Only it was quickly apparent that was not going to be so easy.

Loki stiffened a little, and a little figuring of angles showed Tony he was vaguely staring at the icons he had hoped would provide a spot of hope.

And then he was trembling, and Frigga was moving to her son's aid...

And that was when Loki hugged himself desperately, shrugged her off with enough force to knock her off balance, and started making keening distressed noises in the back of his throat. Tony hadn't heard that sound before.

But someone else had.

Natasha ran in from the hallway, clearly ready for a fight. She gave a short curse in Russian. "What happened?"

"I think he's having a flashback."

"You _think_ he's having a flashback?"she said incredulously.

Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Frigga had gotten over the shock of what had happened and was kneeling in front of her son, speaking in low reassuring tones that he was going to be all right.

Tony's own nightmares about the dark said otherwise. For whatever had triggered this to have triggered it, whatever was up with Loki had to be something that was not going to be easily solved.

Loki was starting to calm down a little. Just a little. But it was enough to be sure he was aware of the world again.

And then, well...

Tony had managed to skip past a great number of otherwise required literature classes in his short and fast academic career. But even he had been exposed to the old term 'shame-faced' and there really was no other way of describing Loki's expression.

He thought a great many curses.

Natasha said a few.

Frigga simply said "Oh my little Loki" as if the issue at hand were a skinned knee and gathered her adopted son into her arms.

And that was when Loki started weeping in eerie and totally unnatural silence.

To make Tony's day just that much more interesting, footsteps thundered in the hall and a moment later Steve ran in followed closely by Thor.

Steve looked like he was about ready to rip whatever had caused Loki to make the sounds into little tiny shreds. Which did not help Tony with his ever more fragile attempts at denying the blatantly obvious.

Thor was disturbed, ready to defend his brother with the mighty war-hammer firmly held in one hand and the other in a fist, but he seemed a bit perplexed. "What has happened?" Thor demanded.

"Something about the tablet triggered Loki."

"You mean he had another breakthrough, and it distressed him."

"No, Thor, as in a trauma disorder," Steve bit out. "Asgard's got warriors, right?"

"Many warriors of great strength'" he said with no little pride.

"Ever have any of them come home without mentally leaving the dangers of the battlefield behind?" Natasha asked him. "Still treat any noise behind them as if an enemy were sneaking up behind them?"

"A few. A few of those nothing can help." Thor's voice was sad, and then he turned fearful. "You think Loki is this way?"

"After what he's been put through, it'd take a miracle for him to have skipped having at least one trigger," Steve told him. "No shame to it, of course..."

"Of course there's no shame to it," Thor thundered out.

Loki cringed.

"Thor, he doesn't understand half of what we say..." Tony told him in an unnaturally upbeat voice.

"As I was about to tell you, I've got a few myself. So if you've got questions later on you can ask me," Steve ground out.

Natasha was looking at the little cobbled-together tablet. "Tony, you put food and drink request icons on here?"

"Yeah. I wanted him to know they were things he could chose to ask for."

"When Dr. Strange said he was punished for eating and drinking without permission but couldn't get _how_ out of Loki?"

That time, Tony couldn't hold in the cursing.

Frigga told him, "It was only a matter of time before someone made a mistake taking care of him. Better it not be family."

_We nearly killed him not a week ago,_ Tony thought.

Natasha handed him the little device. "Get coding, Tony. If nothing else gray them out. Remove them outright if you can."

He'd nearly gotten through with the editing when Frigga gently pushed away from Loki at last. "I must go," she said with some regret. "Otherwise, the realm..."

"Better your children have a home to return to, and a ready hearth with you waiting, than to have you here sharing in their exile," Thor told her.

Loki took it amazingly well, given everything. Frigga's departure appeared to be something he could understand, and there was something more adult about him now.

Natasha followed her out of the room, talking so softly Tony couldn't make it out.

And that left the four men alone.

"Do we have any better idea how he was punished?" Thor asked.

"More guesses," Steve told him. "Can't really know anything until he starts talking."

Thor tried to hug his brother. Loki submitted to it but looked miserable, as if he thought Thor might take the touch away at any time.

"What guesses?" Thor asked with pained resignation.

"Thor, what do Asgardians think about warriors captured by the enemy and mistreated in their custody?"

"Shame for having been captured. Unless there was no way to fight being taken, as is true of Loki."

"And this mistreatment?"

Thor looked away. "It depends."

"On _what_?" Steve outright growled.

Tony and Loki shared a mutual 'Get Me Out Of Here' glance.

"Thor, Steve, you're scaring him. I'm going to go take him down to the lab with me, get him calmed down and distracted, okay? And you two can handle the family education bit where Loki won't have to know his brother's initial reaction? Since he won't be able to tell the difference between anger at his enemies and anger at him?"

That snapped both of them out of whatever mental space they'd worked themselves into for long enough that Tony could retrieve Loki from Thor and gently guide him out of the room with an arm firmly embracing his shoulders.

* * *

Tony got them to the little crash bedroom he kept around the labs for the times Pepper found him sleeping hunched over on a table. Two chairs, one small bed, a table that could have been rejected by a thrift store is had seen so much abuse over the years.

He steered Loki toward the bed and sat down with him.

Bruce came in a moment later. "What happened?"

"I was a fool and accidentally triggered memories of whatever they did to him to keep him from eating on his own. And well, Natasha and Steve both came running when they heard him, so..."

Bruce swore, but his heart rate only went high enough for the monitor to beep a few times before falling silent again.

Loki looked miserable.

Bruce sat down in one of the chairs and reached out to hold one of Loki's hands. "We aren't angry with you, Loki. We're angry at the people who did this to you, whatever happened and however it happened. They are horrible people and a number of us would like to do horrible things to them for what they have done to and through you."

Loki must have understood a good bit of that - he really was recognizing more words every day even if it was probably only momentarily and from context - because he looked up wild-eyed and shook his head.

"And why don't you want us to avenge what they've done?" Tony asked.

Loki looked at him quizzically.

"Why not?" Bruce simplified.

Tony didn't understand quite all of the response, since Loki didn't gesture much yet and he certainly hadn't addressed the topic before, but the concepts of 'big', 'strong', and 'powerful enough to hurt you' were certainly involved.

"Bigger than Hulk?" Bruce asked in a growl.

Loki thought for a moment, then nodded very intently.

Silence.

"Well, that's one more thing we can tell Dr. Strange," Tony quipped.

Loki nearly fainted.

* * *

It took him more than a little while to recover properly.

Between the latest shock and what he'd already gone through that day, Loki wished they'd just leave him alone.

They _knew_. And his mother _knew_ , not that she'd judge him for it but...

And by now, Thor _knew_ , because Steve clearly _knew_. And there was no telling what Thor or his friends in that other life he used to have would think about it.

Which was disconcerting, because they clearly weren't his friends in this new life but it still mattered what any of them would think about the fact an enemy had managed to...

He closed his eyes and shook his head in distress, trying to shake the thoughts out of his mind.

It didn't work.

There was something hard being pressed into his hands, and he opened his eyes to find Tony handing over the device again.

He didn't want to look. Even knowing the source of his unease around eating - _especially_ knowing the source of the unease - he did not want to see those little images again.

And that, he suspected, was the most useful aspect of the thing so far as his communication went.

If he could just look there, there was the promise that Tony had given him a way to say when he really needed access to a toilet. And an apology for what had happened when Odin and Frigga had arrived. _If_.

He focused on it, telling himself he could look without touching. That main page had been trouble-free, hadn't it? So long as that was all he saw, it would be safe. Useless to him, but safe.

As if anything would be safe once the detail about **_him_** he'd let slip got loose.

_You've met Death, and it wasn't bad,_ he reminded himself. _The end is not what you need to fear._

And it wasn't what he was fearing. The way _to_ the end was more than frightening enough anyway.

He finally processed what he was looking at and started with a whimper of fear he couldn't hold in.

Tony'd already set the device to the page of requests. Only...

Only there were blank spaces, black where there should have been an image of food and an image of water.

Blank, the promise that the space was still available, that maybe someday that option might come back, that it was maybe just that Loki wasn't ready to have the option to ask for those things quite yet.

He relaxed and smiled uncontrollably. They had 'listened' to him...

"Better?" Tony asked.

Loki nodded.

This time, Tony went through the entire set of available communications with him - requests, places, people, items, basic concepts like 'yes', 'no', 'please repeat', even 'name this'. For people and places, there was even a setting for being _led_ to where that person or place was, which Loki knew required some amount of technology working in the background in the building but he just couldn't remember what exactly, complete with a large arrow even he could figure out.

And once that was done, they did leave him alone and just let him lie down and doze while they discussed some project they were working on. Here and there, he could make out a technical word or five, but oh it was good to hear those again...

Then they ate, just the three of them, and Tony didn't seem to mind 'helping' with that.

Afterward, Bruce said something and Tony slapped his head. A few minutes later he was modifying the device again. With a little work, most of the buttons now talked. And not just talked, but Tony even made sure Loki could understand the messages and could know what he was saying and oh the way he did it!

* * *

It was very late when Thor wandered into the bedroom he and his brother shared that night.

Dinner had been an individual affair thanks to the disruptions of the day. He hadn't seen Loki since shortly after their mother had left them.

Loki had already gotten mostly together for bed - Thor realized Tony must have helped him through the bits he still needed permission for - and was lying on top of his sheets, facing away from the door.

"Brother?" Thor asked softly.

If Loki had managed to fall asleep, Thor had no intention of waking him.

Only Loki did in fact stir uneasily.

Thor walked over. "Brother, this matters not. Between us, I mean. I saw you, remember, in the moments before _this_ happened to you. Their control was too deep for you to have fought any abuse they dealt to you."

His head was still swimming through what Steve had told him. He managed to remember the bit about avoiding unwarned physical contact when he walked over to the bed, though.

Better to not deal with it if Loki didn't want to right now, he reasoned with himself. Loki had always been a private man, and this... This only made respecting that more important.

"Loki, don't you want to see what I brought you from home?" He hadn't bothered unpacking that while their mother was still with them.

He sat up then, staring at Thor quizzically and worriedly. And with a touch of possible actual exhaustion that left Thor wondering just what Tony had him doing all evening.

The books interested him, mostly vaguely. The plush animal from his quarters was another matter. Caution, the hint of eventual offense...

"I thought you might have need of it, as time passed. I swear, I did not know..."

Loki still seemed uneasy about it, as if he didn't seem to know what to make of it being there on Midgard.

Thor was nearly asleep himself, hours later, when Loki snuck over to lie on top of the covers beside him after a particularly unquiet half hour.

Thor tried to invite him under the covers, but when the answer was a cold hand to the back of the neck he had his answer - Loki was sleeping colder now and neither of them would be comfortable if he accepted the offer.

_To the darkness between worlds with his advice and caution,_ Thor thought as he broke Steve's rules, stuck an arm out from under the sheets, and pulled his brother close by with no real warning. Not without guilt, given the price Steve must have paid to learn what he knew given that he'd disturbingly lapsed into first person a few times in his ire without noticing, but it didn't seem to apply to this.

The answer was Loki pressing even closer plus the realization that he had brought the toy _with him_.

A flash of indignity, and then the remembrance that such things were meant to help the young learn emotional self-regulation, something Loki was still working on.

His brother was just trusting that he wouldn't be judged by Thor for using it. And, given everything, that meant something.

His brother was his brother. Now, I'd he could just figure out who that was in a manner that could last more than three days....

Loki woke once or twice and woke Thor with him thanks to the feel of cold tears on his arm if nothing else, but on the whole he slept through the rest of the night.


	31. Chapter 31

Frigga hadn't gotten off her horse in the stables for five breaths when she was rushed by Sif and the Warriors Three.

Sif asked, "Is Loki doing any better at all?"

"Better, and worse," Frigga told them tersely. Her arrival had done nothing for her mood - Heimdall had not even met her eyes.

"How could he possibly be doing worse?" Fandral asked with obvious concern. "He was... when he left..."

Volstagg looked like he wanted something he could put a blade in. Preferably something that could bleed.

Copiously.

She felt like joining him if he found such a thing.

Hogun as usual found the few words that would fit. "It seems impossible he could be doing worse, given how bad he was when we came to see him."

Frigga nodded. These men had come to see Loki quite a while before his departure. And Sif had never been. They didn't know how well he had already been doing. "He is doing better. And with that has come a better sense of how damaged he is and how abused he was by his enemies."

The four shared a look and Sif cleared her throat nervously. "We were wondering if a visit from us might do him some good."

She thought for a moment.

Now was possibly the least good time they could pick to wish such a thing. She doubted Loki would wish to see any of them any time soon - them or anyone else from Asgard outside the royal family.

Particularly what he'd just remembered. If he'd felt ashamed with just family and people who until recently been strangers around, what in the world would he think with the Three around, of all people? None of them were at such risk, for all knew what the other two would do to anyone who offended against the other.

But then, they also could be exactly what Loki needed.

He was the second prince, and had always known that growing up. He was royal. And while Loki did care in general what Asgard thought of him, often quite intensely, the actual list of people whose opinions truly mattered to him was rather short.

The family. Others with clever minds, many of whom hadn't paid him much mind once it became clear Loki did more fooling with the inventions of others than he did making new discoveries himself and had no intention or inclination of ever changing that. A certain young woman he'd barely missed meeting eyes with a few times in Frigga's recollection, and whom she was sure he'd not actually spoken with even once. Thor's closest friends, these four.

And of those people, it was these who would matter the most now.

Family could not help but accept him, and understood his weaknesses enough to know he'd had no chance of self-defense. Those of clever mind would have rejected him immediately the moment the damage to his mind became apparent - most of them had little use for him to begin with and he had responded having just as little use for them anyway, so there would have been many bridges to mend before any of them could begin to be useful for his healing now.

But these four...

These four had a choice. And they'd continuously exercised it. Often not in the ways Frigga would have preferred.

But now...

Now Sif was as on Loki's side as she could be. And all four knew where he'd been born, so that was done and dealt with.

She sighed. "Have you spoken to Odin about this?"

"Yesterday, my lady," Volstagg told her. "He said he thought it would be good for Loki, but that he was letting your decision be the final one."

"He's had a shock today, remembering more of what happened to him, and it's already evening there by now."

"So tonight would be a bad time, then," Volstagg mused.

"Indeed," Fandral agreed. "But then when would be a good time?"

Sif stared at the stable wall. "He needs time enough to figure out what he thinks about whatever was done to him, now that he remembers. Before he has to deal with us."

"How bad?" Hogun asked gruffly.

"Bad enough for him to feel that any warrior worth the word would have found a means of defense," Frigga told them after a long moment's thought of how not to reveal anything Loki would wish kept secret.

Blood drained from Sif's face.

Hogun looked very grim.

Fandral barely reacted. Frigga doubted he'd put everything together yet; he was usually the last to do so.

Volstagg warmly answered, "Well then, we much remind him his strengths always lay in places more useful in battle than in captivity. No shame in Loki not being able to reply with force."

To their credit and Frigga's silent thanks, neither Sif nor Hogun struck him.

* * *

Frigga was still an emotional storm when she made it into the palace proper.

No one stood in her way. No one dared to.

Odin was waiting for her in the privacy of their quarters.

"You _knew_ ," she accused. "You knew what they did to our boy and..."

"...And there was nothing either of us could have done for him then, whether to stop it or rescue him or take the tears away, Frigga. _Nothing_."

"You should have still told us..."

"To what purpose? It would have done no good in Thor's quest to bring him back to Asgard. And would you have had his moment with us focused on this instead of on being a family again?"

She stood for a moment, arms crossed, just breathing.

She did not admit to conceding the point. "What did they do to him?" she asked. "The human Natasha thought..."

Odin took a deep breath and looked away. "It was less a matter of what they did to him and more what they forced him to do. For their purposes, including making him fear the limits of what their control of him could be used for, making him a participant in his own degradation was more useful. He had no way to fight it. Do not ask me to recount the details, they are better left unsaid."

She nodded. "It's best that way. Better his mother only know what details he's willing to tell her."

"Best if it could be the same with his father," Odin noted darkly.

* * *

"Thor."

Thor stirred in his sleep.

"Thor."

He slipped towards wakefulness, disturbed.

"Thor."

It was like Loki's voice, but not. All it did was bring pain that he would never speak the same again and that it had already been so long since his last words that all Thor's brain could send him in dreams was this warped parody of his brother's voice.

"Thor." A pillow strike to his head. "Thor."

_That_ got him awake. He twisted in bed, opening his eyes. "Uhn?"

Loki was sitting next to him, the little device that had caused so much trouble yesterday securely held in one hand. He was grinning. One finger poked down at the screen. "Thor."

Thor felt his eyes go wide. " _That's_ what it does?" he breathed in disbelief.

Another even wider, almost manic, grin as Loki clearly recognized what he'd said. In spirit, if not in words. A set of pokes. "Yes."

Again the word was warped from what Loki's own voice could create, but...

"Oh, Brother," Thor breathed as he sat up and hugged him.

He patiently sat there as Loki poked through everything, showing off the communications tool.

Tony had even made sure Loki couldn't get lost in the building and could even always find out where they all were so long as they were inside.

If he needed Thor, he could find Thor. And Thor suspected the information came from JARVIS, in which case he would surely be notified Loki was looking for him.

Without, apparently, Loki having a clue about it since everyone was still keeping quiet about JARVIS around him and he apparently didn't remember there was a house AI in the building.

Being the one with information Loki did not have was strange and unfamiliar, and it made Thor uncomfortable to have such an opportunity for pranking Loki back.

Especially given...

Loki sobered when he was done showing off. He was different now, but it might just be that he was out of the second childhood the damage to his mind had thrust him into and back to a mentality closer to his physical age.

Which, if Thor was being honest with himself, wasn't entirely unwelcome.

Adults could mainly take care of themselves, even if Loki did have some specific special needs that required others in routine contact with him and probably always would to some extent, and with the capacity to communicate most of his basic needs...

He breathed a sigh of utter relief. No more every second minding required apart from a few quick and simple guided errands. Loki had a bit of independence and Thor no longer had to think like a constantly on-duty caregiver.

Loki looked at him quizzically.

Thor hugged him. "This is good, Brother. This is very good."

* * *

Loki headed down to the lab with Tony and Bruce after breakfast.

And this time, he actually requested it himself.

The books Thor had brought were an interesting idea, and he was almost certain he remembered some of them well enough that they would be a near immediate help with his recognizable vocabulary... presuming someone would read them to him without making him feel like a small child.

Admitting the need for Halvard The Bilgesnipe had been embarrassing enough. Admitting the need for his old bedtime stories was going to be outright demeaning, even if they weren't being used as bedtime stories.

Lab talk, however, _that_ was different and something Loki was dearly interested in understanding again.

He could take a thousand years to build back the vocabulary recognition he'd had the way he'd gotten it the first time. Six hundred years, and he might manage to understand the words in his first published work so long as Thor read it to him. Maybe five hundred, if he kept getting basic conversational words back at his current rate.

Or his memory might slow and he'd never get it back unless he got it back now.

And being in the lab with them... it was good. Familiar. That was just from the short errands he'd run. Then, yesterday.

He'd understood very basic science terms, in context. Enough to know they were dealing with an air scrubber and CO2, and enough to remember that Midgard currently had a bit of a CO2 problem. Simple to fix, he remembered without remembering how, but they were apparently still working on the technology.

He also remembered that Asgardians were allowed to expose the Midgardians - or any other less-advanced realm - to anything that could be created with the knowledge they already had. Put the pieces together once they were on the table.

And Tony had obviously given he and Thor refuge. And had given him a voice again, however limited.

It would be interesting to see if whatever they had already cobbled together shook anything loose...


	32. Chapter 32

The next three days would have been incredibly annoying if Tony hadn't already decided he _wanted_ Loki to make as much a recovery as a scientific mind as a person in general.

Thor and Frigga had said just enough for Tony to recognize a fellow experimental engineer. Different concepts of technology and most of what Loki did would be considered magic on Earth, but it was close enough.

The more Loki recovered, the more he saw it.

Loki kept asking for words around the lab all morning each day for as long as Tony or Bruce would tolerate it. Which functionally meant until Loki mentally wore himself out. He would crash for an hour in the bedroom near the labs while Tony and Bruce ate lunch as the table in the room, then they'd get Loki lunch, and then he would mainly observe them the rest of the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Tony was observing Loki.

He clearly didn't understand most of the words he was given - especially not on the first try - but there was progress. Enough that Loki seemed comforted by it. If nothing else, he seemed to calm as the days went by.

And if Loki was happy with his progress, then that made the delays worthwhile to Tony.

* * *

It was the third day when Thor finally asked Tony how Loki was doing, before dinner so Loki was nowhere nearby.

"He's asking for a lot of words." Tony told him, "but he doesn't remember a lot of them."

Thor's shoulders slumped. "I had hoped... He's been exhausted at night, but he seemed satisfied."

"He's getting some vocabulary back, he's communicating constantly now, and he's exerting some self-determination about his life. That's _amazing_ progress, Thor."

Thor closed his eyes. "There are times I remember what he has been, and I am amazed at how far my brother has come."

"And there are others when you remember a brother you could stand beside on a battlefield, and you feel like he's got so far to go."

Thor nodded and opened his eyes. "I know he can never be that man again. It is harder to accept now." He sighed. "And I am doing little for him now."

"Thor, you're keeping him alive every single meal you eat together," Tony told him frankly.

Thor paled and Tony sighed to himself.

Yes it was a devastating problem. Yes it was demeaning for a grown man to need someone else to feed him. Yes it meant that if left to his own devices completely Loki Odinson would starve.

But it was the one disabling problem Loki had that they knew his captors and controllers had absolutely intended he have. So long as it wasn't getting worse, Tony wasn't concerned about it.

"That was meant to happen," Tony reminded him. " _That_ ought to be taking ages to lessen, and he's stopped fighting. And we know roughly where it came from."

That only made it worse.

"And he's taking an amazing amount of interest in the world around him now," Tony pointed out. "If I hadn't been forewarned that Asgard treats technology and magic as one subject, I would have been surprised at how he's been in the lab."

Thor brightened a little. "He... my brother was always willing to use what he could to get the effect he wanted. He used to cobble together little holographic generators for when he wanted illusions that would last against those who knew to check for traces of magic. Even when he learned how to make lasting illusions with as little detection risk as possible, he'd still keep one or two where he could reach them." He sighed. "Some of our sorcerers - including the Sorceress Supreme - have biases against other sorcerers who use what you'd consider technology to augment their manipulation of magic. Loki did so all the time. The staff was only one example."

"And he's not touched magic since the battle here. Not beyond one shapeshifting incident."

"Nor have I seen any sign he has tried. Nor did Dr. Strange touch on the subject."

Tony shrugged. "Dr. Strange was looking for damage, Thor. If he's just leaving magic alone for now, without any damage to his capabilities, why would he bring it up? Considering the last time he used an illusion, it was part of an attempt on your life at someone else's orders..."

Thor made a warding gesture.

"The best any of us can do right now is get him through the damage removing the mind control did to him, get him communicating in more than bits and pieces, and then help him deal with the rest of it once he can tell us what he's been through."

* * *

It was that night when Thor finally read anything from Asgard to Loki.

Loki came into their shared bedroom looking as not-exhausted as he had since before he'd begun spending most of his time with Tony and Bruce.

Thor had known it wasn't worth making the offer when Loki was too tired to benefit. It would have only been useful as a comfort, and Loki preferred hugs to talk for that. At least for now and so far as Thor could see.

Now...

"Would you like me to read to you?" Thor offered, pointing at the stack of thin books. "I was hoping some of them might still be familiar."

Judging by the look on his face, Loki clearly couldn't work through all of what Thor had said. But at least it was enough to get him sorting thoughtfully through the pile.

Thor had no idea what criteria Loki used to pick the five he brought over, but he decided to trust Tony's counsel.

Loki needed control of his own healing now. At least for this.

* * *

Thor settled down on his bed, leaning against the wall, and Loki sat next to him.

He looked at the cover of the one Thor had decided to read first. The sheer _wrongness_ of knowing there was writing, what it likely said, and yet not being able to read any of it was suddenly overwhelming.

He laid down with his back turned to his brother, knowing the pages were going to feel just as wrong.

And besides, the less he could remind himself of what he'd lost, the better his chances to remember what he could might be.

He _wanted_ to remember tonight.

But the words he was expecting didn't come in the first book. He recognized others he thought should have come before and after, but not those words.

The thought he could remember something being there that wasn't was unsettling. If that was false, what else might be?

Or maybe he just wasn't ready for those words yet, no matter how much he was _ready_ for those words.

Another book. Still no words he'd picked the book for. He didn't even recognize anything with an association with them.

And then the third. A book you couldn't help but fall into a rhythm when reading.

Thor fell into the rhythm and the familiarity lulled Loki's eyes shut.

And then the rhythm fell apart, lapsed into nothingness, and came back.

Loki _knew_ that had never happened before. Not that book, not when either of their parents had read it to them and not when he'd used that very rhythm as an aid when learning to read out loud himself.

His eyes flew open and he felt the outrage start to rise, fast enough he ignored all caution for the first time in... well, since before.

Loki flipped around and grabbed the book from Thor.

There was a blank page in the open spread, a clean white sheet clearly covering what was supposed to be there. Loki barely recognized the way it was affixed, and knew the Midgardians didn't have half the science required.

Thor hadn't self-censored while reading. He'd gone ahead and decided not to read all of the book when he was still away from Midgard!

* * *

Thor knew he was in trouble when he saw Loki's eyes widen and his jaw drop.

And then Loki grabbed for the other books.

Thor couldn't give more than a half-hearted effort at stopping him.

Loki flipped through them quickly, and it was only now that Thor realized just how many of the books he had brought had needed censoring.

_I should have left them back on Asgard,_ he thought. _There were books that said nothing about the Jotun. I should have focused on bringing them._

A strained look came over Loki's face, and after a moment Thor realized he was watching his brother's words fail completely.

The communications device Tony had given him was either forgotten or deemed unuseful for whatever he was trying to say.

And it was thoroughly horrifying to watch Loki try to speak, the strain increasing and increasing as he seemly tested to see if working ever harder at it might work.

It did not.

What finally came out of Loki once he had been completely defeated in his efforts was a loud demanding squall of outright entitlement.

It nearly stunned Thor past thought.

Requests, Loki was only now beginning to properly regain. Demands?

The sound seemed to have shocked Loki too, straight out of whatever security he'd needed to make the demand. His face paled.

"It is okay, Brother," Thor told him quickly and calmly. "I just don't know what you want. And I wish you could tell me."

It took more calm words, but after a few moments Loki did start to calm down.

"What do you _want_?" Thor asked.

Loki pointed at the emptied page.

Thor sighed. "Loki..."

Light eyes flashed with anger and Thor was suddenly reminded of Laufey as he truly had been. Not as the book lying on the bed portrayed the Jotun king and his kin.

Thor wished Laufey was still alive, then, very keenly. He might have been able to help. Arranged a volunteer so Dr. Strange could _look_ at a Jotun mind with no injuries, if nothing else.

But then, if Laufey was alive then none of this would have happened, most likely.

Loki grabbed for the communication device. He fiddled with it for a few breaths. "Name that." He pointed at the book.

And then Loki pointed at himself.

"You are Loki Odinson, second prince of Asgard and my slightly younger brother," Thor told him.

The look on Loki's face did not soften, not even slightly.

He pointed at himself and then at the blank page.

Thor gave in. Whatever damage might be caused would just have to be caused this time. "Jotun. You were born to the Jotun, on Jotunheim. Our father Odin found you and raised you as his own on Asgard."

Loki relaxed.

Thor realized with a pang of near-regret that Loki must have picked those books specifically for the very things he had covered over to protect him.

The words to describe Loki's blood heritage, which he had already remembered on his own far better than Thor had anticipated.

"I am sorry," he stated softly. "I thought I was doing what was best for you."

A touch of disbelief in Loki's eyes. Just a touch.

"They say mean things about the Jotun. I wanted to spare you that while I could."

Loki seemed to think for a moment.

Thor took one of the books and uncovered the illustration, just for long enough. That was one of the less offensive examples, but it was clear the artist had never seen a Jotun and had taken the description from an old warrior's drunken war stories.

Loki's reaction was full of disgust, horror, and above all insult.

Thor had to hold in a smile. It was horrible what his brother faced being Jotun in an Asgardian family, even shapeshifted, but this was a better way to learn if than had happened the last time. This was one of the few signs of really standing up for himself there had been, and for it to be centered on Loki accepting his blood heritage...

Thor pulled Loki close for a hug. "You are no monster, Brother."

Then, Loki squirmed and pushed a little for room.

Thor felt a finger poke him in the chest. Then Loki poked him in the forehead, too.

"What do I think, you mean?" Thor asked.

Loki nodded uneasily.

"I wish I had been raised knowing. I wish you had been raised knowing. I wish our people thought differently, but most of them don't."

Loki understood enough of it for it to become very clear a question had entered his mind.

It struck Thor then that Loki was logically mostly back to his old self. He'd been underestimating him because of the communication gap and the lingering effects of the abuse he'd been put through.

It could have been days or weeks since Loki's comprehension capacity had returned.

Thor thought.

It was his choice. Entirely his. Their parents were not here, and it would be months unless anything else happened before either of them would come to Midgard again.

Even if they had to keep sheltering Loki, it was time he at least knew when he was being sheltered.

Thor sighed and leaned back until his head hit the wall. He preferred things he could hit.

"Loki, there is something else you need to know," Thor told him. "Something we are taking care of for you. Do you understand?"

Loki gestured uneasily.

"You mean you understand closely enough, but not everything?" Thor asked.

A nod.

"We are here so you can recover with help from our Midgardian allies."

Another nod.

"And for another reason."

Loki gave him a confused look.

Thor tried to find gentle words Loki might understand.

There was a flash of anger in his brother's eyes and a gesture that could only mean 'continue damn it'.

"Asgard knows you are Jotun," Thor told him frankly.

Despair.

"This is _not_ exile. Only to give you space and safety to heal."

The words didn't seem to help much.

"Sif is on your side. The Warriors Three are on your side. Your family stands beside you. Much of the palace guard already knew and cared little about it. More than a few with no reason beyond honor to do so turned on those who turned against you."

Loki calmed slowly and it wasn't until Thor had restacked the books and taken a private moment in the bathroom to dress for bed that he was ready for any more attempts at communication in either direction.

"If you need to spend the night over here," Thor told him, "you are welcome to. I should not have told you that so close to sleep." On impulse, he added, "I thought you ought to know."

Loki nodded, then stood and hugged him.

"You agree?"

Loki gave him a mildly exasperated look, then went to get ready for bed himself.

Thor had to stifle a laugh when he saw Loki trying to wash his face in the sink before he bothered with closing the door all the way. He couldn't believe no one had showed him how the little stopper control worked that would make it into something closer to a proper washbasin from back home, but it would have been such a simple thing to overlook.

It just wasn't possible to get a proper splash up without standing water... although Loki was doing far better at that than Thor would have thought possible.

Tomorrow. The morning, maybe. Loki'd already had more than enough learning for the night. And something that might feel like correction could be a bad idea after what Thor had just inadvertently done.

Tomorrow it was.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to life events including a partition table error that wiped a partition, great big delay. I'm STILL missing huge hunks of what I had done for the next few chapters, but this scene was complete and I'm not actually sure what I was going to pair it with to get the chapter to length.
> 
> In other news, it's time to meet Sigyn.

Sif didn't even try to resist the urge to roll her eyes when she walked into the sitting room some of the young women now under royal protection were sharing for the time being - the young men had mostly been of age to take care of themselves and fully knew how, and the children had been fostered off weeks ago - and saw a familiar figure curled up in a chair, apparently having just ended another crying binge.  
  
It was one thing to need to figure yourself out and have support from Lady Frigga while doing it. This was something else. Crying in semi-public every few days, and who knew what happened in her bedroom at night. Barely ever leaving the protection of these rooms inside the protection of all but the most inner circles of the royal family's guards. Sif was surprised Frigga was permitting it, even during the days when the younger girl was having all her meals brought to her.  
  
Even the day after Loki's heritage had become common rumor, he hadn't been under all that much more protection. Just Thor and two more layers of guards.  
  
 _She's never been permitted the least bit of defiance,_ she forced herself to remember. _And after what she's done..._  
  
Sif sat down next to her. "Sig, it will be okay. The Allfather has promised all of us his protection. It's been less than a year. Things will calm down."  
  
Sigyn turned to face her. "Don't you understand?" she hissed. "I'm not brave like you. I'm no warrior."  
  
"You were brave _enough_ ," Sif told her. She leaned close and whispered, "You've saved his life, just as surely as I have in battle."  
  
"That's the point," she mumbled back through tears. "The entire rest of my life, if the wrong people find that out... Sif, it took one thousand years for the news of Prince Loki's heritage to leak out. What chance does _this_ have to last four thousand?"  
  
 _So_ that's _what this is all about,_ she thought.  
  
"And that's why there are palace guards." Sif put an arm around Sigyn's shoulders. "Most of them already knew. If they were a risk to you, they would have already done something."  
  
"But can they be there, all the time, for the rest of my life?" Sigyn asked her.  
  
"Sig..."  
  
"I can't risk going out in public, not casually," Sigyn insisted. "Thor's feast was dangerous enough, even with you there and him there and the Allfather."  
  
"It's not that bad."  
  
"It is if you're as bad at defending yourself as I am."  
  
"Says the sorceress. Remember, I've seen what magic can do on a battlefield."  
  
"And I rely on secondary amplification and direction. Get me without my gear..."  
  
"Loki still uses gauntlets to supplement his when he can get away with it. He had bracelets for that he never took off when we were younger."  
  
Sigyn made a little noise and Sif realized what she'd said.  
  
Loki Odinson wasn't using any magic any more.  
  
It was hard to remember sometimes that he was different now and not just missing from Asgard. Sif wished she'd defied her parents sooner and gone for a visit when she could have seen.  
  
It would have been horrible to see him reduced as far as the Three said he had been, but she would have known.  
  
"Loki had his knives for backup. Me... all I have is illusions and energy bolts and shields _if_ I have enough warning. And yes, there is a great deal of protection I can set in place about myself. And yes, Lady Frigga is being very kind in offering me refresher lessons. But very few can constantly keep that kind of passive defense up every moment of every day."  
  
Sif gave her a knowing look and a squeeze. That stress on having to keep shielding at the ready 'every moment' really could only mean one thing. "Someone thinks she can never risk being in love," she said with a hint of sing-song in her voice.  
  
"Someone _knows_ so." Sigyn drew a ragged breath. "Sif, I can't even be a housewife like this."  
  
"No, you just need to find yourself someone who won't care. Someone who will think you brave and beautiful and wonderful for doing what you've done."  
  
"And you know of men like that?"  
  
"Yes," Sif told her very defensively.  
  
"Who aren't planning on courting you once you've recovered your sense of self?"  
  
"Yes," Sif told her again. "Thor isn't the only one who feared for his brother's well-being and was cheered that the rumors were reported before there could be an attempt on his life."  
  
Sigyn sighed and turned to face her. She raised three fingers on one hand and wiggled them each in turn. "Fandral, who would love nothing more than his own harem and will only settle when the Allfather finally forces him because _someone's_ contraceptives fail. Volstagg, who has the stomach of a bilgesnipe and more importantly the table manners to match. Hogun, who is truly one of Asgard's great conversationalists... during the once a decade event when he feels like it. Have I missed anyone, Sif?"  
  
Sif sighed. "No one I would immediately recommend, no."  
  
And then whatever spine Sigyn seemed to have found inside herself faded back into nothingness. "See? I can spend the rest of my life quietly alone under the Allfather's protection and later on Thor's, but... there's nothing past that for me."  
  
"Not right now, possibly," Sif allowed. "But give it time, Sigyn. There's still hope for all of us. Give our realm time to figure all this out before you give up on dreams."  
  
"Going to take a lot of time, given the Sorceress Supreme's opinions," Sigyn managed to say with just a touch of snark.  
  
"Still nothing actionable?"  
  
"Nothing Lady Frigga or I have heard," Sigyn assured her. "But she's in that position until Death takes her on, and that could be a very long time. Given that she rarely fights and she's been letting the other realms handle things Asgard traditionally did without anything binding us to continue it, especially."  
  
"I have real problems with the idea of anyone getting herself in a position that includes protection against death from anything but injury and then doing everything she can to make sure that injury can never come."  
  
"There is a protection against it," Sigyn whispered. "She just hasn't done anything to trigger it yet."  
  
Sif raised an eyebrow. She'd never heard of a Sorceress Supreme of Asgard, or a rarer Sorcerer Supreme, who had not fallen in battle of some type or other.  
  
"Well, part of being a Sorceress Supreme, of knowing Death's approved of you for the position, is being killed without dying. She just doesn't take you."  
  
"... Lucky thing, that."  
  
"Only that means the Sorcerers and Sorceresses Supreme all owe her a death. Every other sorcerer or sorceress is prone to near-death experiences when she wants to get a point across, but she has to find an opening first. Them, she can yank straight into the sweet hereafter whenever she feels the need."  
  
"And she's done nothing against ours."  
  
"No. Nothing."


End file.
